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rel124c41 · 2 months

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VISCERA. floyd leech

Held in Floyd’s hand is a single fish fork. It incandesces like a lamp, and when you blink, the contour is burnt on your inner eyelids. “Can I taste you?” OR; Floyd is trying and failing to confess to Mostro Lounge's new line-cook.

tags: cooking, not actually unrequited love, courting rituals, cannibalistic thoughts, developing relationships, food as a metaphor for love, blood kink, first kiss, wingman jade, underage smoking, culinary crucible (twst), they're sooo in love ur honor

word count: 17,669

You do not like the look in Azul’s eyes. To be frank, you do not think you have once seen a favorable expression on the roulette wheel of masks Azul Ashengrotto wears. So, backtracking, you have never liked the look in Azul’s eyes (even more so now).

This one you have seen before: right at the point where the words ‘I heard if someone makes a deal with you, you’ll grant any wish’ fell from your mouth when you wanted to snip anemones off Grim, Deuce, and Ace’s heads.

Originally, you did not have the drive to save all two hundred and twenty-five students. Only those three. Even with the title Prefect, you could have cared less about NRC’s student body until Azul sought to amp up the risk and reward. You accepted his offer for thrill and entertainment, loving the taste of it.

Now, you stand in the VIP room with that similar atmosphere perfuming the air. Old paper and pen ink, the scent of an odious deal about to be struck. You challenge Azul’s self-assured look with an equally authoritative simmer. Your expressions size each other up like claymores on a battlefield. Azul is the first one to break first. He raises a hand and says, “Jade. Floyd. You are dismissed.” He even sends away his reinforcements in this warfare.

Leaving himself vulnerable like that? … No, backtrack again, Azul is far from a vulnerable student.

“Aw, but I wanna hear her answer!”

“Come now, Floyd. We shall be made aware of their decision at a later time.”

“No fun Azul.” Still, the door closes behind the twins. Now, it is just you and Azul alone. Like two shipwrecked survivors in a rowing boat. You are sure he knows you will go for the jugular upon the sight or scent of blood.

He gestures towards the space between you two, two sofas and a table. “Prefect, why don’t –”

“I’ll stand.”

Ah, Azul thinks fondly, that callousness that managed to ensnare one of Octavinelle’s slipperiest and mischievous fish. Still. A knot forms in Azul’s cheek in vexation. Your audacity and Azul’s are matched up so evenly that he almost wonders if you two share the same Zodiac sign.

“So be it.”

You cross your arms as Azul continues. “A talent of yours has been brought to my attention. I was hoping that we could discuss it peacefully,” his blue eyes narrow, taking your stone-like stature, “without any hostility … But, no matter, it is still worth discussing.”

“I thought the Ramshackle dorm is the only asset of mine that has value.” Your posture shifts, straightening. “If it has to Aduece or Grim, you can forget it.”

“Aduece …? Um, no, nothing of the sort. It is strictly something brought to my attention during –”

There is this thing about Octavinelle. More like Octavinelle’s atmosphere. It clings in the air like a heavy candle scent, suctioning itself to the wallpaper, aquarium tank glass panels, and each stitch of the Octavinelle uniform. Something that stalks like a shark. It is a presence you label: viscera.

A stomach and intestines is a viscera and a viscera is a stomach and intestines. You feel if you ever drop your armor around Octavinelle, gastrointestinal acid will come to consume you. The jaws tunneling down to the belly of Jonah’s whale is just a show of weakness away. It is why you act so callous now.

You always try to keep yourself schooled in the trio’s presence. “--During the Culinary Crucible.” And with that, viscera returns to you when those words leave Azul’s mouth. You feel like you just drank spoiled milk. Before he can accuse you of anything, you speak.

“You were one of my judges. I hope you aren’t going to make a baseless acquisition like food-poisoning. Remember, two other people ate what I served you.”

“I also remember, quite clearly, that you were one of the four students able to get a perfect score of thirty.”

Spoiled milk is too weak of a rotten flavor. You feel like you have just dug into a garbage bin and picked the last mold-crusted food item, all the way at the bottom of the barrel, sponging up all other rotten seasonings. To have something of yours peak Azul's interest again … it is not a nice taste. You are quick to shut down what you know has probably already been formulating in Azul’s head.

“Dumb luck. Floyd also got a perfect score.” Him, Trey, Jamil, and yourself.

“You seem to forget I was one of your judges too. I thought you had a more effective memory than that, Prefect.”

Floyd getting a perfect score could be more closely aligned to dumb luck than you. Which is not to say it was dumb luck. Nonetheless, stars and planets happened to align as Floyd was in a good mood while cooking and Jade was a judge out of three others; it just happened. Your food though? Azul runs a restaurant. He can taste experience and talent on the edge of a fork.

Coupled with your experience and talent, you are not an ignorant individual either. Which is why you sit down, imaging that this conversation is going to drag. You ignore Azul’s smile.

Elbows on knees, you drill in, “So, what? You want me to replicate a meal for you? Getting the twins to drag me here is a bit excessive for another bite of lamb and oysters.”

“I would rather monopolize that talent beyond just one simple meal. You’re thinking too small, Prefect.”

“You’re thinking too big.”

You really wish you had magic, just to reverse time. Even if you were a mage, you doubt you would even have the skill to master such a complex spell. But, you would master it. To reverse time and find a way to get a different judge not named Azul Ashengrotto. The line-up for your judges at the Culinary Crucible was three housewardens: Riddle Rosehearts, Kalim Al-Asim, and Azul Ashengrotto. Grim had panicked at the trio, thinking both of you would be losing your elective credit. As always, you took the reins and got you both out of the whale’s stomach before digestion.

“I was thinking: the fruits of your talents are quite wasted. Who do you cook for? That ungrateful cat-beast has no refined palate; he would eat table scraps if presented to him. Ace and Deuce, neither of them are grateful for the meals you must provide. You are surely underappreciated.”

“Wow, you clearly don’t think at all.” You eye a section of the VIP room in exasperation, close enough to the eye-roll you desperately want to do. “You think – what? – I don’t get enough thank you’s and I’m suddenly going to do what exactly?”

Azul almost deflates. It is surprising how easy you can sometimes manage to get him that way. He chooses to straighten a few pencils on his desk as a means to straighten and iron out the imperfections of his approach. Glasses tilted down, Azul answers, “I mean no offense to your friends. But, I think you are not getting proper payment. No, that I know.”

“Unbelievable.” You tsk, falling into the embrace of the seat. “You think the world runs on money.”

“Does it not?”

“...”

“Your silence tells me all I need to know.”

“You want me to work at the Lounge, don’t you?”

“Yes. A much better use of your talents, don’t you think?”

In your head, you imagine the taste of umami takoyaki. A cleaver is raised with the vindication of a French guillotine; when judgment falls, it hits the thick part of Azul’s upper arm. Which would be more ironic: selling Azul’s body parts or eating them?

Below you, your foot taps on the wooden floor. A restless rabbit pittering that gives the housewarden some insight into your otherwise stone expression. Azul must be so certain that you are thinking of throwing in the towel right then and there. Really, you are thinking of Ruggie. Ruggie and the Intra-school Competition. For that time briefly, he had worked in Mostro Lounge, wearing his ceremony robes.

You and Ruggie are very close, lesser than the trio you had dubbed your own, but still more than your other first-years. So one day, he regaled you with the story of working for Azul Ashengrotto just to fill up talking space.

The situation of the broken glass and Floyd’s moodiness. The situation of the kitchen lacking people and Azul having to send servers into the back to help cook. Those are two factors you really have to roll around in your head. You do not like to be rushed and you are wary of Floyd’s penduluming moods.

Though Ruggie has a positive outlook of the rewards he reaps from that time, you do not think you can handle working in Mostro Lounge. You squeeze by with the money you make. However, “You pay well?”

“I assure you will have proper compensation for your labor.”

“Could you stop being scummy and just tell me the hourly rate?”

“For your skills – if they aren’t dumb luck – you’re looking at twenty-eight per hour.”

You know what? The world really does run on money.

While not an expert at mental math, even you know that with just a twenty hour work week, that kind of money would shift the motion of your boat, put more wind under your sails. Monetary motivation is perhaps the most powerful thing in the world.

Expression still schooled, you contemplate it. Accepting this … you imagine yourself tiny, using a tongue as a diving-board into a devilish pit of gnashing teeth and churning tentacles. Right into the belly of the beast. The conjured up image makes you want to shudder. Instead, your soft enamels move and your tongue articulates, “I’m gonna need smoke breaks every two hours.”

Oddly enough, out of all the times you pressed him, this one catches Azul by visible surprise. “Sm-Smoke breaks? … why, I suppose that is acceptable.” That is far from unreasonable, surprising but not unreasonable. “I’m glad that we could come to –”

“And I’m going to need more time to even consider it. That isn’t a yes. I’m outlining terms.”

“Perfectly fine. I was actually going to outline this,” you and Azul lock eyes. “Just in case what I tasted was dumb luck, in a week, I wanted you to return to Mostro Lounge during closing hours. You’ll cook a meal for three judges again, myself included. Then, this conversation will become serious.”

“I will not sign a contract.”

“This is employment; no contract is required. You labor – cook. I pay. Such is the usual transaction of jobs.”

Despite the feeling of a tongue slimming itself across your spine and teeth nibbling on your toes like garra rufa, you think that does not sound too devastating.

A week passes; you decide to keep your discussion with Azul concealed to yourself. There is this epidemic going around NRC called the lost art of keeping a secret. You decide for your mental well-being that you will wait for a week to pass, serve your meal to Azul and two other mysterious persons, and then, spill your guts to Ace, Deuce, and Grim.

You have a close call though, guts almost prematurely ripped from your abdomen. The familiar feeling of teeth on your jugular creeps up onto you in the cafeteria. Fingers agile, you press your plastic fork into another’s jugular and greet him, “Hi Floyd.”

Held hostage by your plastic fork dug into his throat, Floyd smiles and cheers, “Shrimpyyy! Thought I could surprise you this time.”

“Nah, not fast enough. Next time though.” You smile sweetly..

You do not hate Floyd Leech. Though, he is far from your favorite student. The label of friendship does not really fit on him (despite the fact he thinks the opposite). Out of everyone in Octavinelle, the presence of viscera glues itself to him. Carnivorous teeth coupled with his predator adroitness screams belly of the beast to you.

Which is why you fend him off with a plastic fork.

“Hehehe, next time then,” Floyd grins. He leans in, uncaring of how plastic folds on his pallid throat. “Azul-y told me that ya remembered I got a perfect score.”

For a second, you have no idea what he is talking about. You share a grand amount of two classes with Floyd; you do not remember him getting perfect marks in either subjects. Until it dawns on you, that far-off conversation with Azul, the Culinary Crucible. For some reason, your neck feels warm as if you should not have made that observation; like noticing Floyd’s perfect score is a rude thing to do. “Ah. Yeah, I did. Good job again.”

Floyd laughs; you feel the noise through the connection of fork and skin, finally lowering it at the sensation. “Shrimpy did pretty good too. Ya gonna cook me something sometime? Not fair that Azul is the only one who got to taste your cookin’.”

You lower your voice to a suspicious whisper as a thought dawns on you. “... Hey, why does Azul need me working there if you cook so good?”

Unlike Azul, you had not been mystified by food at the Culinary Crucible. During the entire ordeal of being transported to a tropical beach via book, Floyd had cooked at the abandoned cottage. You had been amazed by his skills, gorging yourself on the delicious spread.

His eyes shift up to the left, avoiding your slight interrogation. Almost hiding something. “Eeeh, I don’t know. Azul’s always complainin’ even though he can barely cook. His food is super boring; Shrimpy’s probably tastes better.”

“Talk to Azul about it. I’m sure it can be – Grim, paws off my food.” You brandish your makeshift fork-slash-claymore at your little beast.

“Ah, but I want Shrimpy to cook for me because they wanna.”

“Heh, yeah,” you trail off, unsure of how to respond to that. Mostly failing to come up with a response because you cannot see a possibility of that ever happening. “Like I said, um, Azul.” And that is all you really can articulate because, that’s a cool thought but I can’t see myself cooking for him.

Besides; to you, love is an ingredient stored in the kitchen. And, to you, love is about finding people to be in the kitchen with. Your philosophies do not synchronize with your feelings with Floyd Leech.

“Mmm,” Floyd hums, dissatisfied with your answer. He watches you place your fork down; glances at Baby Seal who has been watching this go down (Ace and Deuce still in the cafeteria line). “Guess I’ll just have to wait to taste Shrimpy’s cookin’ on Sunday, hehe. Caaan’t wait!”

“What’s on Sunday? –”

“I suppose you will. Bye for now, Floyd,” you interrupt Grim.

“See ya, Shrimpy.” He leaves you with a peace-sign.

Slowly, the feeling of being slobbered on like a squeak-toy in a dog’s mouth ebbs. The indent of teeth loosen with each step that Floyd takes, rejoining Jade and Azul outside the cafeteria entrance. When Ace asks what that is all about, you threaten him too with your plastic fork. Sometimes, a girl has business of her own to take care of, your fork emphasizes to the trio. Thus, you manage to keep it secret despite hiccups.

Eventually, Floyd’s statement does come to fruition. Because like you said, a week has passed. On Sunday, he gets to taste your cooking because: “I didn’t know you two were the other judges.”

“Aw, not excited to see us,” Floyd asks with a fake frown. He is leaning over your shoulder, hands in his pockets, and looking far too much like a vulture.

“Did you honestly expect someone else,” Jade asks, following you inside.

Despite the fact they were assigned to guide you in, you take up the front and walk with purpose into the stomach. Mostro Lounge has finally closed and you trudge into it, yawning. Sections of blue lighting twist up the ceiling like a tunneling rib-cage. When blue gleams on Jade’s smile, more importantly on his teeth, you think of viscera.

Rolling your shoulder, you reply, “Guess I didn’t put much thought into it.”

“At least, you came prepared with some strategy. I imagine that must have taken up priority in your mind.”

“Not at all.” The toothpick clenched in your teeth wobbles with your words. Floyd giggles happily; his contagious high-pitched giggle has you fighting back a smile. You manage to knock the mirth away when yours and Azul’s eyes collide. “You two will just have to see if I’m as good as he claims. Isn’t that right, Azul?”

“Seriously, Prefect, did you come here with zero preparation?”

“I was busy with schoolwork. Piss off.”

Azul lets out a tired sigh. You shuffle in front of him, body like the condiments in a sandwich between six-foot-one eel-mer-shaped bread. “So, I’m assuming this is going to be more or less like the Culinary Crucible. I’ll cook, you three will judge. Sounds simple enough.”

“Yes, that is the gist of it. Floyd, if you will.”

“Here ya go, Shrimpy.”

In front of you is Floyd’s hat turned upside down like a beached turtle. Inside lie about twenty or so folded slips of paper. The eel-mer uses the proximity to touch his bicep to yours. So moving that hand off the point of contact, you reach in. “Cioppino with mussels,” you read from the paper. “That’s relatively an easy meal … Give me another slip of paper.”

“But, why?” Azul questions.

“But I’m not going to cook unless I have a challenge,” you say. Over your shoulders, Floyd grins wide at your words almost as if in agreement.

“Now,” Jade pushes your hand back into the hat before you can unfold the second slip of paper. “While I may understand your reasoning, it is quite late. We delegated to write down meals that could be cooked in under an hour. All of them are easy.”

“C’mon, let Shrimpy pick another, Jade.”

“Floyd.”

“Fiiine.”

“Fiiine,” you whine in a matching tone, looking at the Nunito font spelling out the meal you have to make. You frown when realizing you and Floyd accidentally matched up. Before anything can be said, you direct a question at Azul, “Can I listen to music? They didn’t let me at the Culinary Crucible.”

“Of course. However you wish to go about artistic expression, don’t let me stop that.”

“Thanks.”

From the closed door, the sound of guitar that more closely resembles the sound of a chainsaw starts up, horridly grating. Like a surgeon orchestrating with his tools of carnage. Commencing this operatic butchery of a feast. Body and blood.

Loitering, you start to thumb an unheard beat on the bakery box in hand. In your mouth, a toothpick swings up and down and tumbles left to right like a gymnast. Students file past you to enter the classroom you are waiting by and … ugh, why is this taking so long!

Quickly and a bit peeved, you check your phone. You and him agreed upon this time before Defense Magic class could start. The bell should ring in about five minutes and he should have been here five minutes ago.

Glancing into the open doorway where a long fighting platform and multiple seats await, you consider just leaving it on his desk. If you do that then you can still make it to your next class … you are just about to jump in to fluidly join the swimming crowd walking in the class when —

“SHRIMPY!!!”

The toothpick in your mouth breaks into splinters, guillotined by your teeth.

Cradling fallen wooden bits in your hand, you look up at Floyd with an expression that is beyond peeved. It does little to deter him. Hands in his pockets and brother shoulder to shoulder with him, Floyd stalks over to you energetically, grinning wide.

“Hello Prefect.”

“You switchin’ to a second year class, little shrimp? Defense Magic gets a bit rowdy, hehe.”

“Hi Jade. Hi Floyd. No, I’m waiting for someone right now.”

“Aw, Shrimpy, ya miss me that much?”

“If you were so eager to see us before your first day at the Lounge, you only need to say so, Prefect.”

Oh, backtracking, you got the job. Another perfect score of thirty. You start later this afternoon … that is all normal and expected.

There is this odd thing that has been bugging you though. After you had presented the dishes, toweling down your hands and asking for a smoke break, you came back to see: Jade ate the entire meal, scraping the plate clean like a suctioning tube; Azul ate but left a reasonable amount of leftovers that were both alternatively acceptable to trash or save; Floyd took a few careful nibbles then left the rest untouched. Guess I’ll just have to wait to taste Shrimpy’s cookin’ on Sunday, hehe. Caaan’t wait! Such untrue words. Why even say something like that if he would just pick at it like a finicky child?

It seems Floyd never has a long-lasting objective.

Holding the bakery box with one hand, you reach in your pocket to discard your broken toothpick and grab a new one. As you do, Floyd folds cursory arms over your head, leaning over you like a bar-table to talk to his brother.

“Caaan’t believe it; Shrimpy’s big day in the ocean blue starts today.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will be quite interesting.”

“All that delicious food … I should show her how to make takoyaki.”

“Now, Floyd, she must follow along with the orders placed.”

“Aw, boooring.”

“Who's gonna be training me?”

“I believe Azul designated the job to Floyd.”

“Aha ha, hear that Shrimpy? We get to hang out all night tonight~” Floyd leans in a way that you can see his wide, visceral grin.

A human has a set of thirty-two made of enamel and root cementum. Omnivorous with molars in the back for plants along with incisors and canines in the front for meat. Floyd has a set of forty-two teeth. Quite unlike humans, his teeth are made of cartilage – a human body could never adapt to safely chew with cartilage-made teeth. Floyd’s teeth shine in a glass-esque glow.

And: “you got something in your teeth” you say to him, pointing to your own mouth. Because there is a medium-sized piece of something wedged between his glimmering teeth.

“Huh?”

You watch him momentarily jam a fingernail in his mouth, trying to find whatever you are pointing out. And completely missing the mark too. He is so annoying. It is on the bottom row of teeth, not the top, you seethe.

“Ugh, let me.”

Downward, the bakery box finds the floor. Instead of just one, you shake two bamboo toothpicks out of your pack. One flips easily into your mouth and the other pirouettes between middle and index. By the lapel of his incorrectly put on jacket, you pull Floyd down to your height. “It’s not even in your top row of teeth,” you scold. “Open.”

Your command is ignored. It surprisingly seems like Floyd will never open his mouth again. Tight-lipped and staring, his mismatched eyes look at you like you have suddenly grown an extra head. Then, a slow mounting blush grows on his face that peaks at crimson. Hell, the whites of his eyes almost glow when backdropped by the flush on his face.

Did the temperature spike or something? You are at a comfortable temperature. It is certainly odd – your train of thought ends when Jade checks behind you, “My, how scandalous. And right in the middle of the hallway too. I never thought of you as such an audacious person, (Name).”

“Huh?” You raise an unamused eyebrow at Jade. Your own toothpick in mouth tilts down in ire. “You know what, forget it. Look stupid the rest of the day.”

Serves you right for trying to help … stupid twins.

“Wh – Wait! I’ll open my mouth!” Floyd’s tongue lolls out.

Ah, it seems the temperature has spiked. This is why you try not to interact with Octavinelle and all their consuming ways. And because! “Your fucking teeth! Dude, I just need to see your teeth!” Jade’s laughter grows in volume.

Eventually, a bit pissy that this has become a whole ordeal, you manage to get the piece out of Floyd’s teeth. Both of you share a bit of warmth on your faces.

The toothpick is flicked into the trash inside the Defense Magic classroom. You want to forget all about this interaction already.

“Thanks Shrimpy. You’re a lifesaver!” Floyd gives a big, boyish grin, all forty-two of his teeth cleaned. Pink is still a sandstorm dusting on his cheeks.

You look away from Floyd with a twitch in your cheek. Finally – “Ruggie!” The hyena’s ears twitch on the top of his head. You pick up the bakery box of donuts from the ground and meet him halfway. “You’re late,” but you scold Ruggie with a smile rather than a frown.

“Sorry, Leona had me running an impromptu errand. Work never ends.”

“Oh, I know what you mean.”

And you and Ruggie share a bone-deep sigh, despite smiling, that only Leona’s and Crowley’s errand-runner could possibly sympathize with on equal footing.

“Well, payment as arranged,” you say, going to hand Ruggie his payment when – “Jade!”

“Oya, was this the person you were waiting for, Prefect?”

“Yes, now give that back.”

“You said this was payment? What an unusual transaction. I wonder what it could be for.” He opens up the bakery box. Six different types of donuts stare back at him.

You stare right alongside them. You would rather not have him or his brother knowing that you get study guides from Ruggie. In exchange for them, you bake Ruggie donuts and other sweets. Information like that would be valuable to Azul. You remember Deuce, Grim, and Ace taking study guides from Azul in November; you are smart enough to make deals with less odious individuals.

You can even imagine what Jade would say upon learning you require help in your classes, “My brother and I would be happy to tutor you, Prefect.” Why Jade includes his brother when trying to interact with you, you will never know. You doubt Floyd could sit still for one math equation.

“Keep wondering,” then, you retrieve the bakery box from Jade with a huffing puff.

Yet before you can even give Ruggie his payment, an arm hooks around your neck in a chokehold. Gasping startled, you look up to see Floyd’s fluorescent smile hanging above you like the moon on a riverbank. Yet when he speaks, he does not look at you.

“See ya tonight, Shrimpy?”

“Um … yeah.”

“‘Kay Shrimpy! Hehehe!”

As you walk off, you rub your neck wondering what that was all about.

You are prepared like someone might put the finishing touches on a cake. Azul gives you your Octavinelle hat and apron while Jade explains how they go about business. A slip of paper from Jade tells you the connection between abbreviations and meals.

“But if you have any questions on what a certain abbreviation stands for, Floyd will assist you.” You then asked why you would need help; they all personally tasted how capable you were at making meals. Abbreviations are relatively easy to understand too. Jade simply laughed before opening two swinging doors to the kitchen. A tongue lolls out and on the beastly carpet, Floyd stands, dressed up in cooking attire rather than waiter attire.

“Have fun you two,” are the words Jade leaves you with an hour or so ago, standing in the whale’s guts. Fun? You think Floyd is having the most fun out of the two of you because –

Blood hits the floor and soaks into the linoleum. Little stardust sprinkles of red between both of your awestruck bodies. Each droplet holds such a weight that you are almost surprised that the red splatter does not start burning holes through the floor like stomach acid.

Floyd is bent over like he has chronic stomach pain. Teal hair covers his face as he shudders. Backtracking, he was looking at you a minute ago. Pestering you, he had tried to change what you were making. You were not dealing with that. (A knife suddenly falls in the path of Floyd’s hand.

“Please keep your filthy hand to your side of the kitchen.”

“That just makes me wanna touch your side more, Shrimpy.”

“Then, you must also not be fond of your fingers. Unexpected but nothing I cannot work with. A pinch of seasoning and I’m sure even you will be easy to swallow.”

“I have something else you could – FUCK!”)

Now, Floyd is bleeding all over the floor. The metallic stench has you squirming.

Oh, I am getting fired. Or, squeezed. Or, Ace and Deuce are going to find my drowned dead body. The dumpster fire of thought explodes like an atomic bomb when Floyd’s head lifts up. The grin on his face splits from ear to ear. All forty-two teeth catching the light a certain way. Forget all that! I’m going to be eaten alive!! The thought runs a strangely pleasant shiver up your spine.

Is money worth this stress? Because you are dealing with parts of yourself that you do not want to address.

It is the day after and Floyd is staring enraptured at his palm.

Perhaps English language cannot house the absolute devotion that Floyd stares at his palm with; however, Jade believes enraptured is one-fourth close enough given language’s constrictions. His twin brother looks at the innards of his hand with the same expression when he saw fireworks for the first time or experienced the sight of red for the first time. Looking at it like it is the first time he has seen his palm. It is because something new lies on his palm. A new difference between Floyd and himself as identical twins.

Scheming, Jade decides he wants to poke at that wound. So, tearing paper off his notepad, he leaves the pending order with one of the kitchen staff and does not pick up the tray designated for him. Pocketing work, Jade slithers over to the bar.

With his non-dominant right hand, Floyd starts to trace the innard of his palm. That look of enrapturement is so strong now. As if he is only happy when observing that plane of skin. It even changes his eyes, speckles of their natural bioluminescence floating in them. Enraptured so deeply like black-hole is sucking him in.

“Did you happen to forget you have five fingers?” That does not work. Still leaning on the countertop, Floyd glides his hand contently on his palm. “Happen to be missing home?”

That knocks Floyd out of his stupor. “Huh?” On the other side of the countertop, Jade stands at the most empty bar, because customers seem to recognize they aren’t going to get a drink from such a distracted Floyd. Jade smiles politely.

“You are staring at your hand as if you’re trying to will your fins back.”

Jade suspects there is more to it. And he is proven correct when Floyd tights his dominant hand into a fist. The blood-lamp in his eyes dim just a bit, growing timid … no, his brother is acting shy right now? Mumbled into Floyd’s shoulder when he turns away: “I’s nothin’.”

Oh, this is going to be fun. Teeth on display, Jade interrogates, “With that look, I wholeheartedly doubt such a statement. And you are retreating like a pitiful hermit crab right now.”

“Fuck off.”

“(Name) happens to have the day off. I happen to wonder if that has any correlation, with this sudden hand-staring. Did your hands happen to touch, going for the same ingredient?”

“I happen to wonder how many punches it’ll take till ya have a black eye.”

“Fufufufu. To think that all your efforts to get her attention and employed here; and she ends up cutting you on her first day.”

Floyd’s mood lightens. A lovey-dovey sigh escapes him. “I know. Ain’t she perfect~”

You found out only two weeks into your employment that you were getting paid more than ninety percent of the staff.

(One of your fellow line-cooks spit out of his drink when he heard you mumble under your breath during lunch rush, “twenty-eight dollars per hour, twenty-eight dollars per hour, twenty-eight –” like a momentary mantra to convince yourself to not stress too much. Apparently you are getting paid forteen more dollars than the average kitchen staff. You do not get to speculate with him why. Azul comes rushing in, scolding anyone who does not have a hundred and one percent of their attention on their work station.

When you ask Floyd about it, he becomes uncharacteristically less fidgety than normal. How juxtaposing. People that are put-off usually squirm but Floyd goes comatose-like when bothered.) You have decided to drop it since then; why look a gifted horse in the mouth?

The money is such a darling incentive to come into work that you have yet to miss a single shift. At least, it is never boring. Not that you think Floyd would allow you to wilt in the industrial-ness of cooking in a restaurant instead of tender, domestic cooking. You two manage to have this weird mixture of fun and prodding.

And when a customer puts in an order for lobsters, you are not going to waste the opportunity.

“I’ll think I’ll name him Floyd 2,” you say, holding up the crustacean. Twitching antennas wave at you when his rubber-band claws cannot. Floyd glances at you out of the corner of his eye, golden iris like a supernova star. Just as he goes to talk, you drop Floyd 2 into the pot of boiling water. “Whoops.”

“Shrimpyyy.”

“My hand slipped,” you smile.

“Why’s Shrimpy so callous all the time? Ya got a hard shell just like this lobster. Look.” A blackish-orange, uncooked lobster is shoved in your face as you laugh.

“What do you even mean?”

“You’re a real serious type like Azul. But you were all giggles when you and Sea Otter were riding on my back over Winter Break. You danced really funny at the banquet.”

“I dance funny?”

“Yeah, like this,” Floyd starts to shimmy the lobster back and forth. You take it from him with a smile, dropping it into your pot. All four lobsters boiling, you switch your attention to cutting up the appetizer salads by your station. “Ya doing anything after work, Shrimpy?”

“Just going to Ruggie’s Spelldrive practice tonight.”

“You should come to one of my practices, Shrimpy. Way cooler than Spelldrive.”

Your knife falls on the midpoint of five or so slices of washed lettuce. Glancing up, you see as Floyd washes the rest of the vegetables, he is oddly still. His bandaged left hand clenches around the handle. Usually, he taps a rhythm to the side of the sieve.

That is really odd because his voice is so light and carefree. But you can dissect his body language.

“No way, Spelldrive is so cool. You used magic to control the disc but it’s exactly like football.” Your world already had basketball, but Spelldrive is an entirely new thing.

“What’s football?”

“Ah, nevermind,” but Floyd presses for more answers with a smile. “It’s the same as the rules of Spelldrive. Instead of using brooms, you run. And, the control that the players have on their magic plus the second and third years who ride brooms are super impressive. The level of mastery is … on another level!”

Floyd’s face twists at that. “It’s just ridin’ a broom. Ain’t so hard.”

“I thought you, your brother, and Azul were bad at riding brooms. Y’know, sea legs and all that.”

“I’m waaay better than those two.”

“Whatever you say,” you dismiss the conversation just as you slide the cut lettuce into two bowls. You want to drop the conversation and work on the next entree. Floyd does not share that sentiment.

Shaking water out of the sieve, he whines, “Spelldrive’s so boooring. It just a bunch of guys throwin’ around a disk.”

“And basketball is just a bunch of guys passing around a ball.”

“C’mon Shrimpyyy.”

“I guess I could make the time to attend one practice.” Floyd lights up at that. Evangelical light shines in his mouth. Something boils over in you like the stove’s temperature has been turned up.

You are being eaten alive. It is not so bad.

However, backtracking, it starts with kisses.

Whoever is kissing you – crowding above you like a nebulous night sky and draping each warm star finger on the cold surface of your face, mandible to cheekbone – has never kissed anyone before. And it is surprisingly endearing to you. Having to guide the night to properly understand kissing is not biting. Tentatively having to pinch or pull hair when a tongue ventures too far down your throat or a pair of needle teeth bite too hard on your lips. This is how it starts.

Happiness is like the calcium in your bones. You are awfully pleased to be kissing this pair of midnight lips. Speed of kissing escalates and deescalates in intervals; sometimes, the two of you press into each other like you are afraid one of you will leave come morning before falling into slow pecks like time has suddenly become infinite.

In this anonymous kissing, you lie happy on some hard, uncomfortable surface. But with how elevated you feel, it feels like a cloud is cradling your body. Euphoria is a well-versed painkiller.

Peppermint burns your nostrils as the face above you gasps. Ah, despite how you had been chiding off teeth on your lips, you are the one that actually breaks skin. Three pupils of blood fall on your closed lips. Your sheepish tongue pokes out and licks red rain away. Blood falls into the sizzling grill of your mouth and you gasp in response.

Taste is categorized into five groups. This tastes like a sixth. Suddenly, all other tastes pale in comparison. The revelation makes you shudder, each bone vibrating.

You never want to taste anything else. You will never pick up a cigarette if you get to taste this again.

The taste gradually dims when the face finally pulls away, revealing who you are kissing. “Floyd?” Spherical blood sits, a tiny cherry, on the middle of his bottom lip. He blushes like he is sunburnt by your attentive eyes. Before you can ask why he is kissing you, Floyd leans back, sitting on his haunches.

You two are laid on a table. The table stretches so far out into the distance that it enters a void. Behind Floyd, it shrinks down until it blurs away; when you tilt your head back, it fades due to distance. The range of your eyesight cannot comprehend the length of the surface.

Everything else is swallowed and lost to the chewing void. When you tilt your head left and right, tenebrous ebon greets you like a wall. Your eyes are magnetized to the only light source now that Floyd’s lips are too far away to kiss.

Held in Floyd’s hand is a single fish fork. It incandesces like a lamp, and when you blink, the contour is burnt on your inner eyelids.

Puffy, swollen lips move to speak but Floyd beats you to the punch. Out of his mouth falls an even sweeter palate beyond his blood. Your real name – in his voice, nasally, a bit lightfully high-pitched, a bit annoying and a bit liberating – on his tongue, pronounced and said with a hefty weight.

“(Name).”

“Yeah?” You answer, breathless from kisses and that word.

“Can I taste you?”

You think back to how each of you were feasting on each other in your liplock, a sudden amorous meal.

“Yeah.”

Instead of him leaning down, the fish fork in Floyd’s hand starts to move. Your eyes track it with intrigue. Beyond the valley of your chest, you are caught off guard seeing your button-up undone and open like wings. Into an abyss known as the midline sternotomy, Floyd’s fish fork digs in.

A dog-esque whimper falls from your lips. The toes of your right foot curl behind Floyd when you feel a fork scraping past rib bones. Three prongs pierce convulsing muscle tissue. Lithe fingers twist the utensil. Arousal coats like goosebumps on your flesh as a section of you is taken. Eyelids half mast, you watch Floyd bring the red fork to his lips. A section of still-beating, still-drumming muscle disappears into his mouth.

This is more intense than the kissing, that you wake up on fire.

The fire is metaphorical but the engrossing heat that blankets your entire body is not. In Ramshackle’s bed, you kick awake breathlessly. The pillow you were squeezing gives a wheeze of pain when you hug it to yourself tighter. Propping yourself on your elbows, blinking away a dream, you groan. “Oh fuuuck no.” In your chest, your tell-tale heart pounds.

You fall right back on the embrace of your pillow as it mimics the feel of a lover’s chest. Silk and the fire in your face collide in a burn. As chunks of your dream expand or delete away, you consider the heavy weight of … everything.

Floyd.

Floyd was eating your heart. Your face smolders on your pillow – you refuse to dwell on the implications of that.

You dwell on the implications, almost ruminating. In your quad-'apartment stomach, the rumen and reticulum digests the dream, the omasum allows the dream to filter into your bloodstream, and the abomasum finishes up your dream analysis. You metaphorically puke in your own mouth the entire morning, ruminating.

When the taste becomes too much, you hunt down Jade.

Stalking halls with eyes and nose trained for locating only him. And when you do, you do not busy yourself with the subtlety of a prowl. You launch right in on the attack. Stabbing him with a question even though he has a forkful of something in his mouth, “What’s Floyd’s deal?”

Caught off guard, Jade blinks at you. It is rare for such a blank look to cross his face that you are almost unnerved. Then, he pulls the fork from his mouth, chewing and dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you mean. My brother and Azul are not under contract.”

“Not a real deal – ugh, Jade, you know what I mean.”

Sharpened teeth make a beastly smile. A shiver tiptoes up your spine like a spider.

Turning back to his meal, Jade brushes off your response with, “Vagueness is one step away from misunderstanding. You should clarify for your own sake.”

He lifts up his fork and your eyes fall to the cafeteria table. Right now, you are on a fake bathroom break during astrology. Azul and Floyd have lunch together while Jade has a separate lunch. It is the perfect time to strangle information out of him, and, like a good predator, you should not waste time on prowling or stalking but –

“I don’t understand how you can eat like that and remain that skinny.”

As a cook, you are well-versed in the balancing of meals. To be frank, Jade’s lunch probably has the most optimal nutrition in terms of carbohydrates, protein, and vegetables. However, lunches are standardly medium-sized. In front of him lies a caesar salad stuffed with chicken, BLT sandwich, and an egg salad lettuce wrap. He’s three-fourth done with the caesar salad and sure to dig into the rest.

“Metabolism is a fascinating genetic function.”

“If I can convince Crewel to make a body-swapping potion, how about a quick switch for a day?” You can only imagine how cultured Jade’s tongue is.

“You in my body and I in yours. Floyd would have a field day with that.”

“Oh my god, what does that mean!”

Jade chuckles at your boiling worry. One hundred and one spine-chilling scenarios flash in your head. Backtracking, you vow to never give your autonomy to Jade Leech of all people. It will only end in misfortune for you. Scolding, you seethe, “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it. Your smile’s too creepy.”

“I’m not thinking about anything in particular. I’ll let you ruminate on it however. I’m sure you can think of much more than I can.”

“You’re the worst.”

Jade gives a musical hum and forks the last bit of his salad into his mouth. “You know, I could ask the same question: What’s your deal?” His yellow left eye sharpens, taking in the space where you disrupt the atmosphere. Remembering what that evil star could reel out your throat (truth, awful truths you have not made peace with), you scoot back on the table’s seat.

The mental image is odious. Jade’s hand hovering over your salivating mouth with the other holds your chin skyward; his fist clenches around a fishing line, yanking; he scoops up everything you keep concealed as you cough up blood like a weak geyser. A violent image. Yet, violence absent of any amatory intent. (So unlike your dream with Floyd.)

Putting distance between you two like a panicked crab, you mutter, “What do you mean?”

“You are good friends with Riddle Rosehearts, yes? You should know that he never indulges Floyd’s whims; he would never agree to working in the same Lounge as Floyd either. Yet, the two of you have gotten quite cozy.”

“I never voluntarily approach him. I work there for the cash.”

“Hm, perhaps. However, you do not shy away when he approaches you. Why is that? What is your deal?”

“We’re supposed to be talking about Floyd’s deal.”

“Alright. Then, let us talk about it.”

“Lets!”

“How do you find his disposition? Too wholesome, too loathsome? You two seem to be becoming fast friends … ah, but that is just my humble, little opinion. No need to look so upset.”

“Floyd is … Floyd … he’s viscera.”

“I assure you my brother has other anatomy beyond his stomach.” As Jade says, he unwraps his egg salad lettuce wrap. The smell burns your nose. You get the egg-scented message that such a description could match Jade with his bottomless stomach.

“No, it’s not literal. It’s – Being around him feels like being in the belly of the beast.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why don't you give me an example?”

“You know what? Okay.” You contemplate for a moment, thumbing through the notecards of your memory. Finally getting it, you snap your fingers. “Okay! Okay. Last week, Tuesday, during my shift. He stood behind me the entire four hours of my shift. Like I mean, stood there. Just breathing down my neck, all pissed off. I thought he was going to take a bite out of me, Jade!”

Ah, Jade remembers that day well. It was the day you had a laundry mishap, procrastinating on the chore to the point where you had no clean slacks. Nothing too interesting – so what you forgot to do laundry, that happens in the life of a busy Prefect! The only thing is:

(“Shrimpy’s wearing leggings! Shrimpy’s – fuck!”

Jade looks up from his paperwork, hovering over Azul’s shoulder. Holed up in the VIP room, he and Azul are going over the month’s numbers of hours delegated to the staff. Measuring punchcard times and figuring where to subtract or add hours for each staff member. Numbers on papers become quite boring when Jade sees the state his brother is in.

“Floyd. Do not knock over the table.” Strife laces Azul’s voice.

Sprawled on the ground, Floyd half-sits and half-kneels on the violet carpet. In his excitement, he had bumped into the table set between the two couches. Pushing himself up, the grin on Floyd’s face is mammoth and energized. “Shrimpy’s wearing leggings!”

So it seems you were, Jade would find out later. Skin-tight leggings; black with flared bottoms. You had walked in with your button-up untucked to hide what Floyd cites is the prettiest ass he has ever seen. That particular article of clothing left little to the imagination – snug so tightly on each tantalizing curve of yours.

“Is that so,” Jade asks, having yet to see you during your shift. Looking at the clock, he notices that you have only been clocked in for about three minutes.

“I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Floyd breathes starstruck, hand clutched to his wrinkled shirt.

With that, an evil thought comes into Jade’s head.

“I am sure today will be an equally blissful day for the staff of Mostro Lounge.”

“Huh? What ya mean?”

“I mean, she is not invisible. Obviously, if she is such a sight to behold, the staff will be looking as well.”

Jade puts his own hand up to his heart, polite smile on his lips, and closes his eyes. He reopens them when the VIP room door slams shut – the wind carrying Floyd’s worsening mood and threats against the entire staff. The clock shows you are only four minutes into your four hour shift. The politeness of his smile morphs into something sinisterly serene as if a cunning plan of his has come to fruition. And it has, in just a few small minutes.

Ah, what an unfortunate start to your shift it seems. Fufufu.)

But it was far from unfortunate for Jade, who chuckled every time he opened the kitchen door to see Floyd standing protectively behind you, crowding around you to cover you up while refusing to let you reach for anything on a high shelf. He would bare his teeth at whoever glanced in your direction for mere seconds.

“I doubt he would have bitten you,” Jade placates, not wanting you to misread Floyd’s intent.

Emphasizing each word, you seethe, “He was breathing down my neck. He sounded one breath away from tearing apart my jugular!” Even though Jade seems to be reminiscing, he is obviously looking back through with a damaged pair of glasses – one temple broken off and one lens cracked.

You remember it much better: the wind-chill of a predator’s breath kissing your cervical; the uneven, spontaneous growls that would bloom behind your ear and have you pressing tighter to the stove; the intimate fear pierced into your spine through the morbid surgery of Floyd’s presence. You still wonder what you did to upset him so badly that he felt the need to monitor you for your entire shift.

“Listen,” your face pulls into a frown as you stare down Jade. “Your brother has life sorted into two categories: fun and boring. I’m in a category I don’t want to be in. Just tell me what I need to do to make myself unappetizing to him.”

So I don’t have another dream like that ever again.

“Ah,” Jade puts on a mask like he is going to tell you devastating news. “I’m afraid you’re quite a delicacy to him. Floyd has always been known to hold on tight to his food and eat in painful little bites. How unfortunate for you~”

You hang your head like the strife of Floyd is a guillotine snapping the cervical bones in your neck. To be so consumed by him like this mentally … it’s tearing you up inside.

“If I may pry, why are you so insistent on knowing about my brother? I sincerely hope it is not for ill intents, dear Prefect.” You are starting to catch onto the theme that most of Jade’s smiles are just threatening.

Insistent? Out of the two of you, Floyd is the insistent one, binding himself tight around you. But – you still Jade’s words linger in your mind. Why were you so insistent … You imagine a fake reality where you answer his question with, ‘because I burnt food for the first time in my entire life this morning. Because this morning, I ate overdone scrambled eggs that crunched in my mouth like pretzels. Because I think I’ve unknowingly developed a crush on him and it hit me so hard this morning that Ramshackle would have gone up in smoke if Grim and the ghosts took a minute longer to notice the burning stove.’

Instead, you answer, “Just want my peace of mind back.”

It is a partial truth that Jade does not have to use hooks to create red, wet aqueducts in your throat to get the answer. No need to use magic like Shock the Heart on you; you have already had your heart-attack this morning!

“I sincerely think there is more to it than that.”

“I promise that is it. I want to know Floyd’s deal to get him off my back.”

“See, but you’re acting in such a contradictory way, Prefect. Perhaps I should use something to loosen your tongue. Holding so many barnacles of thoughts in your head must be tiring.” His left eye starts to fluctuate with pulsing gleams.

“OH! Would you look at the time! My bathroom break – it’s uh! I’m gonna be late for class! Bye Jade!!” You race off mouse-esque.

You have not seen Floyd today … which is admittedly very nice.

At least I only had to put up with one fake eel and one real eel today. Two real eels is too many, you think as you pluck a tender cigarette from the package. Despite having a closing shift, you have yet to see Floyd since he invaded your dreams. A beady eye of red is born as you pocket your lighter. Breathing in, you contemplate on this slight blessing.

Apparently, Floyd has been neglecting schoolwork for the past week.

Whenever he was on his laptop, Jade mistakenly thought Floyd was doing his assignments. Turns out for seven nights he had been browsing GOAT for shoes and organizing each one on documents – so his typing mimicked the sound of doing assignments. Caring in a far too sinister way, Jade has locked Floyd in their room with a spell too advanced for it to be broken by one mage.

(“I don’t quite understand why he even would look at shoes; you see, he’s low on cash at the moment. Oh, but I am truly sorry to have to separate you two tonight.” Jade apologizes as if you are upset over the matter. Your deadpan look is far from mournful.

“However, I told him I would let him out when he has at least completed three-fourths. I believe he should be successful as long as he can find the correct playlist.” Jade’s yellow eye gleams at you, almost winking. “Plus, he has proper motivation to finish up sooner.”

“The hell –? I just asked if I could go on my smoke break.”

“Yes, but your constipated expression told me that you had more on your mind. Besides, isn’t this part of Floyd’s ‘deal’? His day to day – I thought I’d graciously keep you updated.”

You flip him off as you walk out the backroom.) Now here you sit, a wall embracing your back.

Usually, you would stand but you think you might mistakenly pour cement in your shoes. Soreness is like molten lead in your bloodstream, weighing you down. You have never felt such agony in your hamstrings and thighs. Thus, you sit on an awful, treacherous thought.

Would Floyd accept any study-guides you get from Ruggie?

There are multiple faucets to why this is a cretinous thought. Wouldn’t Azul have study-guides for the twins; would Floyd swallow his pride to accept anything; did Ruggie even have the topics that Floyd was struggling with – because you have no idea which schoolwork Floyd is skimping out on! Like you said, it is a cretinous thought. For some reason though, you would really like to help Floyd – paying back nothing yet paying back everything too.

Your blooming cloud of smoke asks Why am I acting so selfless for a selfish eel before it evaporates slowly into the oceanic air. There is not really any sensible answer hidden in your soul.

Twisted Wonderland is without a doubt as senseless as your soul. Even now, where you sit smoking is so world-shatteringly different from the typical ‘go out back and smoke’ area. The Octavinelle dorm is enveloped in water. The night sky outside of Mostro Lounge is a unique pocket that isn’t really a pocket at all. In a bubble, on the edge of a cliff that dips down into black, you sit staring at the swimming stars of fish.

Even the classes are an oddity. The two classes you share with Floyd are Art and History of Magic. As far as you have observed, he does well in both of those subjects. So, you doubt he needs a study-guide for either.

Which subject could it be: Astrology, Magic Analysis, Ancient Curses –

A pair of arms wrap serpentine around your shoulders. The anaconda has bound around his unexpecting prey. As a passenger to your train of thoughts, your mind goes blissfully blank. It is an odd sensation: to have been ruminating the entire day over a dream and when confronted with the only corporal part of the dream, you feel at peace..

You breathe out a dragon’s breath and a greeting, “Hi Floyd.”

Mmmmmmph. Is the response spoken into your right shoulder. Reaching behind, you take the hand still pinching your cigarette and stiffly pat the top of Floyd’s head, sharing his tired-tinted sentiment.

You have been eating your heart out, and puking in your mouth all morning. It is an exhausting activity, anguishing yourself over a silly dream, over your dream. “Did you get all your work done?” You stop petting teal hair to return your cigarette between your lips.

Mmmmmph! Anaconda-esque embrace squeezing tighter and tighter, you are really unsure of how you should take that sentiment. It sounds more frustrated than anything – can you share in Floyd’s frustration? Heartbeat lines of waves fall over you two from the overhanging light. No, you have transferred all your strife out of like the emotion is but a colony of bees smoked out of a hive.

When tobacco and paper wrapping has burnt away to about halfway, you receive a clearer insight to Floyd’s misery. “I’m never lookin’ at stars again.”

“Ah, astrology.”

“Mmmguuuh.”

Throat-held vibrations tickle against your shoulder. Floyd depresses his face on the ledge of your collarbone, weight so crushing like he wants to melt into you. Pinioned up in his grip, you just accept the heat of his cheek and the rhythm of his groans.

Pretending to hold an intelligent conversation: “Totally agree with you there. Stupid scorpion.” Ash is tapped off the side of your steel-toed work boots. “I’m a –” then you tell Floyd which animal/symbol aligns up with your Zodiac.

The weight on your shoulder ebbs slowly as Floyd lifts himself up. Then, his bony chin digs into your shoulder causing you to squirm. Arms tighten to stop your earthworm motions and Floyd remarks sleepily, “Mmm, I like shrimps better.”

“You know I can never wrap my head around that nickname. I get why Grim’s a seal because he’s shaped similarly. I don’t get mine. Eels eat shrimp or something?”

“ – Or something.”

“That’s vague.”

“What? Ya want me to eat ya, Shrimpy?”

In cartoons, when a character is punched in the face, stars start to prance and bounce around their head. Floyd’s words are equivalent to a face-impacting wallop. Words crash into you with all the grace of a burning space-shuttle ripping through air. BANG! Bunny-esque stars start to dance around your head, reeling as if all those letters had condensed into a fist.

Lightning of pain branches across your face, and you only get to save yourself by doing one thing. You turn your head to where Floyd’s chin perches and blow smoke into his face. As he falls back, coughing up a storm, you quickly work to get control of the weather inside you.

The turbulent sea of a crush is something calamitous. Lunar shadow-waves tilt across Floyd’s body as you breathe in more smoke. Still coughing, Floyd grumbles, “Why do - ack - ya do that? Smells funky.”

“No asking questions if you don’t answer questions.”

Elbow protecting his nose and eyes seething, he grumbles again, “I told ya, or something.”

“Not good enough. I don’t like roundabout answers.”

“Shrimpyyy.”

“Hey, no calling me that if you can’t tell me why.”

Floyd avoids eye-contact. Not blushing but with all his grimacing teeth on display, he whines, “But it’s embarrassing.”

“Now you have to tell me.”

And he really does because Floyd being embarrassed is alien. You go to deal your own physical blow on Floyd. Aiming a hit that is intercepted, you gloat, “Or this little shrimp is going to take down a big eel.”

When Floyd interlocks your fingers together, you fight back. You fight back through depressing pressure on it; you do not fight the borderline amatory gesture. His hand feels nice in yours. The lighting-shaped lesion in his inner palm that you created feels so warm.

Your mark, your heart sings. Killing that melody, you start to wrestle slightly with Floyd. Horseplaying, your joint hands press against one another, moving back and forth with each playful jab you throw at one another.

“No waaaay, you’re too weak.”

“Says the person about to be beat.”

“I’m fending you off with one hand!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Ack - ak! That’s – uuk – cheating!”

“Why am I called Shrimpy!”

“Because I’mma squeeze you like a Shrimpy!”

“Oh my God,” you laugh. “That’s an even bullshit-er answer than ‘or something’!”

“It’s true! Come here!”

“Ahahaha!”

Sportive laughter blooms from you. Pouncing like a dog seeing its owner after a week long vacation, Floyd pushes you down onto the ground. You squeal breathlessly, “Oh my God!” The back of your head collides with his other protective palm rather than ground. You two are still entwined at the hands – his left and your right. You slap and wrench your left hand this way and that. Floyd follows with his right, trying to grab that too. A foot scuffles up to his lower stomach, pushing. No way are you going to accept a Leech squeeze without a proper fight. You two twist and squirm on the floor, laughing together.

All the while, the caress between your right hand and his left hand remains an independent variable. Unchangeable in this discord of rapid-moving limbs. A caress of interlocked fingers.

“Shrimpy’s gonna – AH HAHA – Shrimpy’s gonna get squeezed!” A mouthful of sharp piscine teeth gleams over your face. You kick at Floyd’s intestines hard enough where his mouth goes circular instead of being crescent.

“Nuh – hahaha – no way!” Floyd makes another grab at your left arm. You twist on your side, crushing his grip on the cement below you, as your heart pounds in your eardrums. You arch in a giggling shriek when Floyd tickles your side, exposing your left arm.

“Aha!” Floyd shouts victorious when he manages a squeeze to your bicep.

Yet, before a shrimp can be squeezed, a door opens. “(Name), your break has been over – oh.”

Jade drinks in the sight of you and his brother like it is a recherché tea blend he has never seen before. A gloved hand covers the uniform pressed over Jade’s chest. Well, this is his first time seeing his twin have a crush so: “Oh, I am so glad to see Floyd getting along with his little shrimp. Warms my brotherly heart.”

Frozen on the ground, you and Floyd show Jade your teeth in matching, disgruntled, and cringing grimaces. All thirty-two square enamels of yours; all forty-two triangle enamels of Floyd’s.

“My, what sour expressions! Fufufu!”

“Why are you making that face!”

“I’m gonna shove this down your throat so you stop saying such stupid shit,” your fork moves with each word you say.

“All I said was –”

“I heard you. Do not repeat it.”

Oh, how you heard Ace, loud and clear. With all the agonizing clarity of a centipede squirming in your ear, his words made an invasion in your body. Not even a full minute ago, Ace had commented, “you and Floyd seem pretty close now.” Those words got you to instantly drop your waving hand, Floyd’s scarred palm still up and waving buh-bye to you, before you rounded on Ace with your fork.

More frequently, between class breaks, Floyd has been visiting you during the time you and your trio have lunch. It is nothing eccentrically different. Floyd has been a persistent leech on you since Jamil Viper’s overblot … but you never reciprocated in conversation until now. Which is probably why Ace brings up the one basketball practice you attended fourteen days ago:

“You know that one time you came to our practice, I think he played the best he has in – FUCK!”

As Ace nurses the four indents on his throat, you fake a moue, “Oh, what was that? You have to speak clearly Ace.”

The sound of your best friend’s hacking and your other best friends’ laughter is a tranquil balm. Enough to where you can stop stressing over the lack of distance now between (Name) (Last Name) and Floyd Leech.

Okay, maybe you never stop thinking about the lack of distance. You are a person who always backtracks into previous thoughts. Reversing time in your mind and puking in your own mouth is perpetual. Therefore, you end up stewing away in your mind, moving a spoon through a bowl of wet rice. Ah … closeness is such a flimsy concept.

You and Floyd seem pretty close now? Perhaps.

‘Cannibalism Cooking’ is a teaching segment on how to erase the distance between self and other? Perhaps.

You think too much? Yes.

Despite your ire, there has been a shift. It is could be in something small like how instead of cooking alive lobsters you name Floyd 1, Floyd 2, Floyd 3, etcetera; you have taken to making stories up for each lobster with Floyd, humanizing them in jest like one does with Barbie dolls, as Floyd’s lobster mourns the death of your lobster who fell into the boiling pot. It could be something large like how you will look at Floyd at times and think of how you want to devour him down to the bones — cooking him on the very stove in Mostro Lounge that you work, your own lai d'ignaure.

Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking, you repeat to yourself in threes. You try to focus on the preparation of rice.

For almost three months you have worked at Mostro Lounge and it has gone on without a hitch. Which is odd because backtracking … you think back on Ruggie and the Intra-School Competition. You have yet to see Floyd in a bad mood, and that cannot last forever.

Eventually, the thing Ruggie foretold comes to pass. Three days later. It is like a weatherman reporting a category four hurricane, an inevitable part of the atmosphere that cannot be avoided. Floyd has fallen into one of his bad moods. And it is worse than any natural disaster.

Double swinging doors open like a maw of roaring teeth. One door happens to smack the tray out of an employee’s hand, just about to exit to the dining hall. That is what causes your eyes to flicker up. Calamity comes in the sound of crackling porcelain and squishing food. Two dishes have clattered to the floor, food wasted. Your eyes flicker up from the discord of pasta, seafood, and vegetables to see the criminal of the crime. Floyd Leech who has the meanest maw that would put any apex predator to shame.

That monstrous look? You guarantee that the credit for crafting it belongs to the sauce splattered on Floyd’s slacks and shoes. Shadows settle over the eel-mer’s face. His hand comes up to hold his own shoulder in an iron grip.

Besides you, a line-cook bemoans, “Well, it was nice knowing him.”

Every employee is aware of the rules: if one of the employees is not following the rules, squeezing is permitted. One of the unspoken rules: do not piss off Floyd Leech. Ruining his shoes is a swift way to get his mood down.

You and your fellow line-cook share a grimace. The employee – you think he might be a Scarabia or Savanaclaw student, too far away to tell the color of his arm-band – is shaking in Floyd’s presence. Watching Floyd’s mouth and eyebrows twitch and the student’s hands move in apologetic measures, you consider something heavy on your tongue.

I really don’t have to go out of my way to help that nameless student, you think just as your mouth opens. Really, though, you only think that because you do not want to confront the reality of who you are helping. “Hey!” The kitchen staff switches their attention from the scene to you. Ugh.

“Which table was that for?”

The Scarabia/Savanaclaw student almost looks ready to fall to his knees in gratitude. Shaking, he replies, “It wa-was for Table N-Nuh-Nine.”

“Well, clean up Table Nine’s mess. Mop’s in the supply closet,” you hope the student is sharp enough to pick up the message: stay there until Floyd is calm. “Then, get out on the floor and offer Table Nine complimentary drinks because of the delay. Move it.”

“Yes, right away!” You think he might be Savanaclaw because you have never seen a person run that fast before.

It is like those stare-down between two predators on nature documentaries. You and Floyd size each other, him pissed that you let his punching bag escape and you pissed that he caused perfectly fine food to spoil. Eye contact locks in place; confrontation like a rumbling storm cloud separates you two. Whoever yields is going to have the face and accept the bite of the other. It comes as a surprise to the kitchen staff when you look right into the sun, challenging that mean eye. Lips pulling back to grimace, it comes to an even greater shock to everyone when Floyd looks away first. When his sheepish eyes glance back up, you move a finger in a ‘come here’ motion.

It would be ideal if he could move without kicking a wad of spaghetti across the vinyl floor … but you take what you can get.

“Hand me that stool,” you say. Refusing to take your eyes off Floyd, you hold your open fingers out behind your back towards your fellow line-cook who has a stool by his oven. When Floyd passes some cooks, they press their stomachs up to the burning stove-plates, dangerously leaning inward to avoid the immediate danger of a grumpy eel. Still, you two look daggers at each other.

The stool finds your hand and you set it down in front of you – right by your own designated stove .

“Sit,” you instruct and he wordlessly obeys.

Even while listening, he is glaring at you. A sculptor named Animosity has molded his features; he looks at you like he wants your head to fly off, probably thinking you are going to scold him like Azul and Jade do. Instead, you turn on a third burner (bottom right) and look around for a frying pan.

You were warned by Jade and Azul around the first week of your employment, Azul’s words far-off yet intimately close too: We tell all long-lasting staff but I ask that you heed this more than the others, Prefect. It is better to leave Floyd alone when he is in a bad mood.

Floyd is silent as he watches. His lilac vest and white button-up is wrinkled with his slouched posture. Tie still undone. No hat this time around. Sitting and slouching, he still comes up to about your elbow. On the stool’s footrest, he hooks his shoes on them, just glaring and glaring at you.

No matter, you think, retrieving slices of bread. I can deal with a childish glare. You start to lather up the slices with garlic Parmesan butter as the pan heats up gradually. But – you have to go to the refrigerator to retrieve two ingredients you do not have on hand.

Just as you go to ask your fellow line-cook to fetch those ingredients that you needed, a hand grabs your slacks. Mild surprise seasons your face as you look down. Burying itself into your black slacks is Floyd’s left hand.

“Why aren’t ya yellin’ at me?”

“Would you like me to?”

Floyd shows you all forty-two of his teeth in a disgusted grimace. Like the mere notion of you yelling at him leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

“Don’t ask for it then,” you scold lightheartedly before finally asking yet another favor of your co-worker. Floyd remains silent but keeps his hand attached to you.

You are baking something quick because you need Floyd’s spirits lifted before that student comes back with the mop. Heat kisses on the plain of your forearm skin as you put the bread slices on the pan. Dial up to eight, a perfect temperature for this little meal. When you get the other ingredients you need, you quickly assemble Floyd’s sandwich.

While you cook each side for four minutes, Floyd bounces his left leg in dismay. His eyes trace over your countertop surface where all your preparation lies but you make sure to keep his eyes away from the stove. His hand is content on your pant leg.

“Here,” you say, holding a sea-turtle green plate out to Floyd. You set it down on the countertop. He eyes it with disinterest yet stops slouching. Quickly turning off the third burner, you move the frying pan to the top right to cool off.

“Grilled cheese?”

“Oh, please, I would never make something so boring.”

Foyd’s eyes glow a bit when he is intrigued. Right now, his eyes are pricked with little firefly holes of light because of your words. That sentence motivates Floyd to pick it up.

Which you only really consider a success when he looks at you wide-eyed, chewing on his first bite. “Tis so goe.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. I can’t understand a word.”

“This is so good.”

Oh.

Why does your chest hurt right now?

“Damn Shrimpy, this is really something!” Floyd praises as he takes another bite, uncaring of the heat.

Oh your bittersweet organ pounds. Maybe – just maybe – because it is Floyd, that praise settles on you a little differently than previous praise. Not that you are unappreciative of those that eat your food. As Grim really thinks anything you make tastes great, as Ace or Deuce did not come from a lineage of highly sophisticated and picky taste-buds, Floyd’s praise is different. Floyd is not as easy to please as he seems. The glaring fact that your food has brought a smile to his face causes your heart to pound in an alternative rhythm that you have never felt before.

Before you can start thinking about that more, you explain what makes the grilled cheese so different: “It’s a combination of grilled cheese, pizza, and garlic bread. The pepperoni and garlic butter add a punch, while it really just looks like a normal grilled cheese. Figured you’d like it.”

He really does like it. It is evident as he takes a gigantic bite, listening to you explain your mixture of three types of bread-based foods combined into one. Stringy cheese connects from his lips to his food. It is a little distracting how fluidly he gathers up the flexible intestines of your grilled pepperoni sandwich. His tongue and teeth are inhuman after all.

Hell, should you turn down one of the burners? Why are you feeling so hot? You watch a slice of pepperoni disappear into Floyd’s chipmunk cheeks before he says:

“Shrimpy’s a real good cook.”

“Of course, it was why I was hired here. But … Thank you. That’s very nice to hear from you.”

“And ya made it especially for little me.”

“Hm?”

“Shrimpy cooked just for me.”

“Uuk –” Caught just like that. You were hoping he would somehow overlook it, either because of his bad mood or his admiration towards the food. Before you can open your mouth to embarrass yourself with pointless retorts, another calamity steals your attention.

You look towards the noise by the double doors, and before you lies the best sight you have ever seen at Night Raven College. Azul. Flat on his ass, having slipped because of where that student mopped. The octo-mer’s glasses are tilted and blue paints his cheeks. “HAHAHAHA!” You quickly slap a hand over your mouth so you do not join Floyd’s laughter. Though, your shoulders shake quite a bit.

It is also the best sight in Night Raven College because it allows you to procrastinate on the philosophy of how love, to you, is finding people to be in the kitchen with.

But, mostly, it is the best because it is Azul having slipped on his ass. “Hehehe.”

Eggs in a carton. That is what they look like. Eyes in a mask of skin. A twin set of eggs, turned sideways and unblemished. Staring up at you, those eggs remain open and bulge from the concave carton made of skin. One yolk is yellow and the other is a plain olive-rust.

There is a third part to your philosophies – the idea of Heaven that I see is a slice of you staring up at me. If love is an ingredient then the body full of love is a banquet hall.

A dish acts as his pillow. His locks are combed back with gravity, teal and black angel hair seasoning the meal. What you have on your plate is Floyd’s upside-down head which unblinkingly stares at you. He looks coherent. You are not sure if that makes it better or worse … because it means he can hear (along with you) the words Azul is saying:

“Unadon is just one of the many delicacies made from eel. The average chef knows about nine ways to prepare eel into different meals – braised or stewed or fried or grilled. Today, the Culinary Crucible asks that you prepare this catch with your heart as the writer of the recipe.”

And what awful words they are.

Timid, you look up at Azul while he walks the length of the room. He is dressed in his Culinary Crucible uniform; hair tucked behind his ear, cotton table cloth on his hip, sleeves of the double-breasted jacket rolled up to his elbows. He is reading off a clipboard. His glasses steal in the limited light, glowing like a kitchen knife, each motion of those lenses keen as a stab. Each step of his is perfumed with the scent of viscera.

It only makes sense because you are in the belly of the beast.

“Cooking eels is particularly challenging. Unlike other finfish, the skin needs to be removed as soon as the eel is dead due to the slippery consistency. On average, a chef invests a number of years into mastering and perfecting the craft of making a mouth-watering meal.”

Reddish-mauve muscle layers drape across the wall like curtains. Hardly noticeable but the walls shudder with digestion. Incurvate muscle layers are connected together by towering bone pillars. In the thinner layers, between this fusion of stomach and rib-cage, reddish-mauve turns a reddish-orange with light.

Food acts as the flooring. A runny egg yolk about the size of pillow nestles into a crimson tomato that is equal to the size of a beanbag chair. Juicy ribs decorate the floor like carpeting. Baguettes underfoot crunchy softly with each step Azul takes. You look down at what is holding yourself and your chair up.

Underneath your feet is a cucumber. Kaleidoscope-esque seeds are arranged in the shape of a sun. Foamy white-green has a moist caress on you, and, when you test it with your toes, white plasma froths up with the pressure.

“Harriet Van Horne was an American newspaper colonist with her career starting in 1940’s. In 1956, she wrote an article titled ‘Not for Jiffy Cooks’ and, in it, she wrote the following words: Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. Chefs. (Name). The Culinary Crucible asks that you enter with this love. Or never cook again. Please begin.”

Begin?

There is such a momentous weight before starting. Not limited to cooking, there is always a kind of second breath curled up in the first breath before one starts a new task. Breathing with more effort to steady yourself in your resolve.

The breath you take suctions in a perfume, aligned with the floral notes of sweetness found in sugar-peppered churros, sourness found in slobbering grapefruit, saltiness found in prickling flakes on fries, bitterness found in melting dark chocolate, and savoriness found in – you don’t know yet.

Cooking is like love, you reflect amorously. You maneuver with a careful approach, gently moving the plate closer to you. Keeping him upside down, you take the hook of his mandible between your thumb and index. Dentist-like, you open his mouth. Paralyzed with an active consciousness, Floyd’s tongue hangs in his mouth like a stillborn, pink mole rat.

It stretches. Stretching like taffy with cheesy elasticity, you tug it between your dull square enamels. Pulling inch by inch, you hold Floyd’s tongue with tongs made of teeth. When it disconnects from his buccal cavity with a wet, ripping sound – spuuuul-ck! – evangelical light burns from your mouth to your retinas.

My – My bedroom. I’m in my bedroom. Gently, your teeth move off the object you were biting down in a violent grip. Salvia soaken into your pillowcase, you let out a quiet groan. You fall back down on the pillow, finding a dry patch to rest your cheek on, having just woken up.

Not good … Not fucking good at all.

That stupid eel; will you ever get a goodnight sleep again because of him … him and stupid sweet laughter, sour eyes, salty lips, bitter touch, and savory kiss. Kiss? Kiss! You blink and reel yourself from the image your brain was starting to paint.

“No way,” you breathe flustered. “I don’t want to kiss Floyd.” You hold that thought on your tongue like a cough drop. The flavor seeps in and – “Fuck, I want to kiss Floyd.”

Grim, who sleeps belly-up, gives a little kick next to the cradle your left thigh has on him. Quieting down, you think of a conversation you and Floyd had about a month ago. You still need to answer that question – “You know I can never wrap my head around that nickname. I get why Grim’s a seal because he’s shaped similarly. I don’t get mine. Eels eat shrimp or something?” / “ – Or something.” / “That’s vague.” / “What? Ya want me to eat ya, Shrimpy?”

With determination, you reach over your pillow to your bedside table. Hand locked on the phone, your first sight of the morning is a tiny Grim blooming alive on the screen. You coo at the picture of Grim sleeping, tail tucked closed to his body and eyes drawn shut. Cutie, you think, sliding up the screen.

Now back to being a soldier on a mission, you click on Safari and type away. Eels and shrimps. You click search. Not wanting a long hunt, you hit the first website. MORAY EEL and CLEANER SHRIMP writes itself out on a blue webpage. Relief fills you to find the article is only two paragraphs worth of reading.

Okay, Floyd. Time to see what is so embarrassing about a tiny nickname. There is no comprehensible way that his embarrassment could possibly tip your own embarrassment off the scales. Two dreams intimately cannibalistic is much harder to admit than the reason for a silly nickname.

The two paragraphs read:

“There are approximately 200 species of Moray Eel, most of which are exclusively marine although a small number inhabit brackish water and fresh water. Its eyes are small and vision limited, so the eel relies on a sophisticated sense of smell to detect prey, which consists primarily of cephalopods and crustacea. They possess one long dorsal fin that extends from the neck to the anal fin, allowing smooth propulsion through the water. Snake-like in appearance, with wide mouths full of misshapen teeth, the Moray Eel looks ferocious but is in fact a shy, mostly solitary creature living most of its life in burrows and caves.”

Shy? You scoff at the very idea of it. Continuing on, you read the second paragraph.

“For some species, the only regular companions are cleaner shrimp, which live in a symbiotic relationship with the eel. The shrimp congregate in teams called a ‘cleaning station’ and move across the whole body of the eel – including inside the mouth – removing parasites and dead skin, which is their food. This cleaning ensures good health for the eel, so both species benefit.”

Your hands clap over your face as if the pressure can push down the geysering flush that is overriding your skin and hide away all these emotions.

“(Name), could you retrieve something from the walk-in freezer for me?”

It has been a torturous week. Being co-workers with someone you have developed a crush on; you imagine creating a big X with your arms, you do not recommend it. It is such a delicate tight-rope walk across a boiling pot of scalding water.

Even while working without him as a constant leech, he remains there.

On your body and inside your body. Inside your body, it is how he infects your thoughts. On your body though is a bracelet made of teeth (beastman, merman, fae, and human). Floyd made it for in Art; even took the red string and tied it himself around your wrist. (“I don’t have any stuff for an earring so I hadda improvise. I think humans wear shark necklaces sometimes; bracelets are like necklaces for the wrists!”) There might just casually be a tooth from each of the seven dorms on your wrist. You are currently stirring scallops around in an oiled skillet, watching a golden crust form on them and admiring your recently made jewelry.

Floyd’s very odd, you think as you look up from your station. To see who needs you to retrieve something from the walk-in freezer. A pair of heterochromic eyes size you up. “What do you need me to get,” you ask. “I can’t really leave these to burn.”

“It will only be a matter of seconds. Turn the temperature down a bit.”

Lawfully, you decide not to argue against it. Jade is just one ring lower from being your boss. The blue flame lowers slowly. You walk away from the oven, keeping your apron on, and follow after Jade.

“Thank you. I cannot quite carry it all myself.”

“No problem. What are we grabbing?”

“A shipment of veal and fresh beef. Two boxes each.”

You nod your agreement to help. When you two come up upon the steel door, Jade takes the handle in his gloved hand and pulls towards himself to remove it from the first locking mechanism. Cold rushes towards you with a bear-hug-esque strength. You give one hard shiver before falling still. Jade almost seems to smile in the face of frosty air, lips quirked up.

“By the way, have you seen Floyd today? He’s always around on the weekends but I haven’t seen him enter the kitchen yet.”

“Still interested in his day to day?”

“You know what, forget I said anything,” you say, stepping in front of Jade. Like a deflating flower, your toothpick lowers to the ground in disappointment. “I’m sure I’ll see him later.”

“Who knows it might be earlier than expected.”

“Huh?”

Then, Jade gives you a shove hard enough to send you sprawled on the floor inside the walk-in freezer. You almost end up puncturing a hole in your cheek with your toothpick. That bastard!

The thing about freezers is a majority of them have plastic sheeting between the steel door and the inside to keep the temperature below zero. Long, seven inches wide stripes of plastic hang like party streamers from the entrance. Coated in ice, it is extremely difficult to see through, whether in or out.

Which is why you do not notice until you are inside the freezer that Floyd is there too. He looks at you down on your hands and knees, confusion a mere flicker until a flame of rage consumes it. Standing up, Floyd rushes past you. At the hanging plastic and entrance, he screams.

“Jade – you fucking bas – !”

“The human body takes four to six hours to succumb to hypothermia in zero degree weather. So, take however long you need.” And though the difference is not too noticeable, the room grows a bit dimmer. The very noticeable part is the sound of the lock clicking in place.

“Jade!” A fist flies through the icy plastic, banging loud against steel. “Jade, I’m gonna strangle you when I’m out! I’m gonna break your fuckin’ terrariums!” You think you just saw the steel door dent with the force of Floyd’s kick.

A pregnant moment of silence settles between you two. Floyd refuses to turn around. After a few more threats and punches to the door, he still remains spine facing you.

By now, you have picked yourself from the ground, hugging yourself. All you are wearing is a thin unbutton, apron, slacks, and a thin tank top. Your shoes and Octavinelle hat might keep some heat circulating. Four to six hours? That is too generous for what you are wearing; Jade probably got that statistic about people wearing winter gear.

When another shiver races down your vertebrates and Floyd still has not moved, you quietly poke, “Um, Floyd. Do you know what’s up with Jade?”

“Ugh, I told him I had this handled.”

“What handled?”

It seems you were not supposed to hear that because Floyd finally turns around. Droopy eyes give you a fleeting, disinterested once over. Besides his usual fidgeting, he appears unbothered by the cold. Spinning around with a sigh, Floyd aims at his vitriol at you with a glare.

When he stalks toward you like a predator, you straighten up. While not entirely experienced in fights, you are not going to be the squeeze-toy thrown to an angry mongrel to be torn apart until stuffing flies like snow. The fist you were preparing loosens when Floyd simply reclaims his spot on the ground, leaning against the opposite wall. Huh?

“I’mma go to sleep. Wake me up when Jade opens the door.”

Huh!

“Wait, but can’t you get us out with magic?”

“Jade used that spell again; needs two mages to unlock it.”

A curse sizzles under your breath. It grows into a mushroom cloud of air in front of your face, crystalizing. Fuck, it is like a miniature Antartica. Not wanting to display any weakness, you only rub your hand up your left arm instead of rubbing both like you desperately want to. “Well, there’s got to be a reason why. Revenge for slacking off?”

Floyd does not answer you. He just sits with his legs pulled up and chin resting on his knees. “Look, I gotta get out of here. I’ll freeze to death.” At that his eyes grow a bit more alive, flickering up to you. A weak half-smile is aimed at you.

“Well, I don’t want a popsicle Shrimpy.”

“So, you can get the door open? Oh, that’s a relief!”

Turns out Floyd cannot get the door open because all he does is start stripping. HUH! Floyd might be a little too late in stopping you from turning into a popsicle; you remain frozen solid, openly leering with questions. You only unthaw when you see it is just his Octavinelle jacket and scarf he is taking off. Those two items he offers you in an outstretched hold.

“I thought you could get us out of here,” you mourn with a whine.

“Unless you gain magic, I can’t. Here, it’s not going bite –”

You barely let Floyd get out another word before you are throwing on his jacket and mummifying yourself with his scarf. Screw humility, you bet half your salary that this freezer dips into the negatives at times. Oversized, his jacket falls at the midpoint of your thighs. You squeeze yourself in an imaginary embrace, trying to bottle up all your warmth and –

“Why are you holding your hand out still?”

“I don’t really mind the cold. You’re gonna start shiverin’. You should sit.”

“I’m fine.” Your toothpick flies up and down in your mouth, moving to the beat of your full body shivers. “I’ll still be able to move when Jade unlocks the door.”

“C’mon Shrimpy.”

“I’m not going to cuddle up with you for warmth.”

“It’s not cuddlin’, it’s squeezin’.”

“Same thing.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh uh.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh uh!”

“Nuh uh!”

You end up letting Floyd squeeze you to keep you warm; it is not cuddling.

Sitting between his long legs, accepting his arms which wrap around your waist, letting him rest his sleepy head on your shoulder as the black strand tickles your cheek. It is not cuddling because he holds you with cement arms instead of in soft amatory. Despite that, it is helping with fending off hypothermia.

Floyd’s hands are flushed pink, almost frostbitten. When you look down at where his embrace locks, you see the crimson flesh of his phalanges and your own hands ache from just looking at them. Your hands are tucked in Floyd’s jacket sleeves. Only equipped with a button-up now, there isn’t much to keep him protected from the frigid ventilation.

“Pu-Put your hands under my jacket.” You break a silence that has been stretching on seemingly infinitely. Snotty slugs run down your nose and you sniff them back into their home. “You’re going to lose a finger.”

“I’m fiiine,” Floyd mumbles into your shoulder. He has been drifting in and out of sleep for, well, you do not know how long truthfully. He seems to be stewing deep in thought.

It takes only a minute (you counted in your head) to get him to put his hands under your tank-top and all the layers above it. They feel unnaturally hot against your skin. Moderate frostbite. You thank him for listening then go back to counting the number of boxes in the room for a third time.

“There’s got to be some kind of loose screw or like weak area in the magic, right?”

Frustrated, you pat the steel door, nudging the plastic out of your way with your shoulders. After whittling down so many toothpicks, you start to grow fidgety. You need to go outside and take a smoke break; hell, you would forgo the cigarette just to get a breath of fresh air.

Claustrophobia settling in, you press your frostbitten fingers over the seam of the metal door and wall. Maybe you can use something to push the lock open. “Maybe I can knock something into this spot and unlock the door.”

“Jadio sealed it up with magic. It ain’t gonna open.”

“If you’re not gonna help, zip it.”

“You talked to me first.”

“That’s it! Quiet game starting now!”

You lie on Floyd’s side, sharing his jacket like a blanket, when you murmur, “Floyd, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“... Ya lose the quiet game, Shrimpy.”

“Hehe, damn, you’re right.” You two watch your laughter float up in clouds of cold air.

It takes until Floyd gets the start of deep frostbite and you get the start of superficial frostbite when he admits softly, “I think I know something that might work.”

You look up with shiny eyes. Growing really frustrated, unshed tears have started to cling to your eyelashes. Not that they would really vanish if you ended up crying. The image of tears freezing on your face is much more appropriate.

Poking your mouth out of Floyd’s scarf like a timid turtle, you ask, “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinkin’ –” Floyd trails off, oddly shy. He is already flushed from the chill but you watch crimson spread like an infection. He will not look at you.

His red expression reminds you of the time you took a toothpick to pick food out his teeth … wait, a minute: The shrimp congregate in teams called a ‘cleaning station’ and move across the whole body of the eel – including inside the mouth – removing parasites and dead skin. Now you two definitely match on levels of blushing.

Why do I think of that now; you startle when Floyd’s eyes narrow down at you.

He drinks in each atom and molecule of you with his eyes. Snotty nose, flushed face, shivering tremors all ingredients used to make the messy image that is you at this very moment. Floyd could not ask for a better sight. A little apprehensive at his intense staring, you hide your chin in his lilac scarf. He looks like he wants to take a bite of you –

“Shrimpy, I love you.”

“...

“Huh?”

“You don’t needa say it back or anything.

“Just,” Floyd then pronounces his next words like someone speaking to customer service, making sure each syllable is clear. “Shrimpy. I. Love. You.” Your face creases at his odd tone until you hear it – the click of the steel door being unlocked. Your eyes widen in shock. “There we go,” Floyd says, reaching one hand through the plastic hangers to push open the entrance.

“Ya can just forget this – mmh!”

Reviewing and backtracking, a stomach and intestines is viscera and viscera is a stomach and intestines. Each organ of your own viscera is working itself into this violent kiss. Churning and ruminating like lustful waves. You have to digest each part of Floyd Leech in this kiss or you will starve.

This has marinated long enough.

It is even better than your dreams.

When you take his tongue in your mouth, each nerve on your tongue flares up in a sweet vibration. Warmth melts through your bones as you grasp at Floyd’s hair and he pulls you up by your waist. He is a bit inexperienced but he is surely reacting positively to it.

This savory flavor is unlike anything you have ever tasted. Tagging and twisting tongues, you two devour each other like you are each other’s three star michelin feast. With harsh bites, you two switch flavor profiles with which area that is explored.

Like an inmate on death row, you take care and time with making sure each lick and bite is savored. Peppermint and meat. A laugh huffs into Floyd’s mouth, you were not expecting such a weird combination.

You two break apart momentarily, panting breaths beating out in tiny clouds against the cold. Sharing a moment where you both just want to stare at each other. His olive-brown and gold eyes are like heavenly light. There are sand-flickers of a dozen different hues in each one, all shades deliquescing together to make them glow slightly. He has such a tender look in them.

Five seconds is far too long to pause kissing; you and Floyd both agree, throwing yourself back at each other.

Each part that Floyd touches on you ignites with a hellish fire. Not even the negative temperatures of the freezer can subdue such a flaming sensation. He cradles your organ and skeletal system with such care, moving kidney to lung to lymph nodes, moving ilium to scapula to xiphoid process. Every part of you worshiped.

You are never going to come up for air. You both have waited far too long for this.

I’m gonna fucking bite his lips off, you think with untamed carnivorous desire. It seems Floyd agrees to the sentiment. Because he eagerly follows when you move him by a handful of his hair on the right side, black and teal threading through fierce fingers.

“Aah,” Floyd gasps when you pull.

“Mmmm,” you moan when Floyd squeezes.

“Ah,” Jade squeaks surprised.

You pull away first, head snapping towards the open door. Iron hot warmth burns your lips. You look at Floyd’s twin with horror when you realize you definitely have salvia coated generously on your lips. Mourning that it is not blood on your tongue, you listen as Jade says, “I felt the spell break, but it looks like I made an ill-thought-out decision to check. My apologies; please continue.”

But you cannot because – “my fucking scallops, Jade! If those are burnt, I’m going to break your terrariums!”

“My, what flaming anger. Perhaps another hour in the freezer.”

Both you and Floyd run at Jade just as he unclips his magic pen.

This should not be that big of a deal.

You have done this a hundred times over and will continue to do it a hundred times over. So there is absolutely no rational reason for your hands to be shaking on this avalanche level intensity. Still – looking down at them, clutched around a tiny red coffin – there your hands are … at the end of your wrists … shaking.

There is still time to dispose of the evidence. On both hands you can count the number of people who would be more than grateful to receive this little tomb. Two of them happened to have beast features on the top of their heads, and one of the two already expressed interest in it.

(“How does this smell?”

“Shishishi, smells delicious. I didn’t know today was payday.”

“Wait! Aaah, don’t touch it please – this isn’t payment.”

“Hm,” confusion knits Ruggie’s face. “Then why bother asking?”

You cannot meet his eyes at that moment. Shuffling shoes suddenly seem more interesting as you murmur sheepishly under your breath. “It’s a little embarrassing.” Unable to elaborate further, you open up the red box. Aroma and warmth swims through the air. Ruggie’s eyes widen as he takes in the sight.

“Oh. I get it now.”

You ruminate at that moment, vomiting out all your insecurities. You barely even stop between each word. All of it pulled from you by an imaginary fish hook: “It’s so embarrassing; I’m going to throw it out!!”

“Don’t you dare.” Ruggie yells as you rush off to find a trash-can.) Eventually, Ruggie did manage to convince you to keep it in a very cop-talks-down-a-suicide-jumper with the cop being him and the suicide jumper, the bento box.

Floyd will – backtrack, Floyd is going to laugh at it. You are just stuck on predicting if his high-pitched laughter will be mocking or amused. Perhaps, his dominant hand will come to rest on his right shoulder, miffed beyond sensibility. The bento contains a mini-hot-dog-faced bear sleeping under a blanket of rice, dyed to look like a watermelon, with dreams of corn, cucumbers, and meat floating above his head. Is that amusing or aggravating?

Waking up so early in the morning to make another lunch on top of the ones prepared for yourself and Grim … what illness have you caught, fever turning your hands into fretful shaking limbs … what happens if he hates the bear and would prefer a bunny or panda … you even stressed over picking an aquatic themed bento, but decided it against it because it was too on-the-nose for your tastes.

If a heart is made of meaty worries and anxieties, you put your heart into this meal. Head down, roaming Night Raven’s halls, you blush hard at the thought.

Things have been escalating fast between you two. Floyd’s shyness melted away when you two stumbled out of the walk-in freezer. His body and blood eagerly reveal his own matching hunger. You still remember last night kneading dough at Ramshackle, him nestling you from behind and pressing more and more kisses to your pulse point. Both of you devour each other in lip to lip kisses.

Love, an ingredient in the kitchen.

By the time you have arrived at your destination, your face has thankfully cooled down. There he stands. He is caught up in a conversation with Jade as Azul patiently waits off to the side. I shouldn’t interrupt them, you think and gladly grab onto that detour. If you turn down the left hallway, you can avoid this and pass Ruggie’s D period class. This vulnerability is worse than the vulnerability of being magicless. I should go. They seem busy –

“Shrimpy!” Your heart knocks hard on the muscles of your throat at that nickname. How does he always know when you are around?

Closing the gap, refusing to make eye-contact. You can feel the casual observation of Azul and Jade on you as you display what is in your hands. Stop shaking, you big baby, you scold yourself. “Floyd. This is – um –.”

“Is that for me? Aw, does Shrimpy like me or something? That’s cute — a little shrimp with a little crush.”

You finally look up. An amused, mismatched pair of eyes squint impishly at you. Miles of intestines give a teapot boiling over sound in rage. Okay, two can play at that:

“Jade. How nice to see you! I happened to make extra for my own lunch; I noticed your habit of eating more than one meal at lunch and thought you would enjoy this.”

“My, what a gracious offer. Thank you, (Name). I will be sure to savor every bite.”

What you are offering to Jade is suddenly swiped: “HEY, THAT’S MINE!”

Your lips quirk up, expecting that. His next move you are much less prepared for. Halfhazardlessly, he flips open the box as if to check that Jade has not eaten anything from the tomb. All of his energy drips out of him, bloodletting-esque. He almost appears paler.

His only response is a slow blink directed at you.

“You don’t have to eat it. Grim or Ruggie will – And! And I get it! It’s pretty embarrassing. I totally get –” Your word vomit is swallowed by a pair of lips.

Floyd does not even give you a chance to reciprocate, pulling away with laughter on his tongue. Not mocking or amused. Lovey-dovey laughter.

Love has such a wonderful flavor. Right there, in the belly of the beast.

#floyd leech x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #floyd leech

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pumpkinbxtch · 2 months

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𓇼 the sun & the sea 𓇼 〰✷〰

— apollo / lester x daughter of poseidon!reader

part i | part ii | part iii | part iv

☆ radiostar is playin': forever always by the driver era…!

warnings: none taglist: @emidpsandia

He, apparently, was dead missing.

"He went alone on the mission with Python. He hasn't returned for three days now." A month later, Meg contacted you through an Iris message and explained everything that had happened. A month later and the days passed, nobody knew about him.

"We only know that he retrieved all the Oracles and the gifts of prophecy returned," Chiron told you, and Dionysus, for the first time, looked nervous and worried about his brother.

But if Apollo had succeeded in his mission, where was he? You hadn't dreamed of him either. Days went by and your anxiety grew.

"I didn't agree, but my brother insisted on pushing him to the limit," Poseidon said seriously, and Percy replied, "I think he took it too literally, don't you?" You suppressed a groan while your father scolded your brother with his gaze. Python was gone forever, but they knew nothing of Apollo.

"It's okay, it's only been five days," you thought, but you realized that every day you did it with a new number and without any news until almost two weeks had passed... Honestly, you didn't know how many times you had cried in all that time, you didn't even bother to hide it, and even your roommate requested a room change.

Lately, the time was bad in every sense. Thunder rumbled, and you hugged the pillow tighter, tears already rolling down your cheeks. The room was colder than usual; after all, you were alone in it. You accompanied yourself with the dim light of your desk lamp, and the flash of lightning illuminated the darkest corners. You realized you were crying over too many things, everything was very recent, you hadn't even finished processing Jason's death, and those lightning bolts... all they did was remind you of it.

"Wasn't it enough with him?" You wondered as you let out your sobs. Jason was his son just like Apollo, and if he led them both to death just to reaffirm his authority to everyone, you had no doubts that Zeus was a cruel father. The thunder shook the window, and you closed your eyes in anger, not retracting anything, even if Zeus annihilated you with one of his lightning bolts, you would never do so. Probably beyond, on Olympus, your own father struggled with annoyance with his brother, but even if Poseidon wasn't half the father that Paul was to you and Percy, he would never allow you to be harmed.

Your tennis sounded against the wet sand of the path leading to your favorite café. You walked in a ghost town with a hollow chest and the cold penetrating your bones, but it didn't matter because you already felt like those skeletons that Nico brought to the surface when he was in a bad mood; anyway, you moved forward to have a hot chocolate, it was Sunday, you had to have enough strength for classes the next day.

— Here it is — the lady said when you had just formed in line at the bar. You frowned and shook your head.

— Surely it's for someone else, I just got in line.

The girl smiled and looked at the label.

— Hot chocolate? —she asked in the waiting line, and no one recognized it, she returned to you and handed it to you again. — It was ordered in advance.

A joke from Frank? Frank didn't make jokes. But if it were, how did he know what you wanted?

You took it and looked at the label, it had a sun drawn on it that made you purse your lips. "Of course, it had to be," you thought bitterly and walked back taking the long way, the one that passed by the small Tiber.

The sunlight barely reflected on the water after all it was covered by the clouds, and you sighed as you looked at the huge body of water, your chest hurt. How did this happen? You would be better off if you hadn't entered that Grove, but you had to do your will, but you wouldn't have had those days with Apollo, which provoked mixed emotions in you again.

"this rhymes for him were different, but he hopes for put that ring and find what he's been missing."

— If you wanted to marry me so much, come back and do it — you murmured with your nose buried in your scarf and tears stinging your eyes. You cut your step and faced the river that continued to shine coldly, the small cup you held slipped from your hands with each sob, and when you let out the first whimper, you let it go. However, it didn't fall. You gasped, and when you looked beside you, your breath left you.

Of those brown curls, only a few remained mixed with the blond ones, of the freckles you counted that last time you had him too close, there were only about three hundred instead of a thousand. He was taller, and his body more athletic, but he wore the same Led Zeppelin t-shirt and ripped jeans from the knees. His smile was big and triumphant, the same blue eyes you had been waiting to see were just trying to memorize your fractions in the same way you were doing with him.

— And are you serious or are you just fooling me?— His voice. You threw yourself into his arms without considering if he could be hurt, but judging by how he looked... then you took him by the shoulders, he foolishly thought you would kiss him, but you just leaned back and kicked him in the chest with the skill that only you could have.

He groaned on the ground in a fetal position, and seconds later, he rose on his elbows with a confused look.

— Idiot — you shouted as you walked towards him and knelt to be at his height. Apollo couldn't help but smile like an idiot, and you couldn't help but hug him again. — Where the hell were you?

Your whimpering caused guilt in his chest, and he took care of your head as both lay back on the grass. He stroked your hair as you clung to his chest, wishing his scent would imprint on you to never forget it.

— Hey…— He called you, and you looked up, noticing tears in his eyes too. You cupped his cheek and, before he could say anything else, you kissed him. The first kiss. He closed his eyes, completely surrendered to you, feeling like he could finally breathe freely after months. When your soft lips left his, he held you tightly, burying his face in your neck. You couldn't see it, but Apolo had a flushed face and a knot in his stomach.

But you didn't need to see it, because as he hid in you, the sun broke through the clouds, shining brightly, almost lighting up the whole world with brighter colors than before. It was with that detail that you confirmed he had become a god again, and his feelings were showing to you in too many ways.

— I…— You spoke after several minutes of silence, causing him to sit properly on the grass with you, holding your hand. — I do want to be with you. I'm not just messing around, just so we're clear.

— Do you have an alternative? — He joked, and you gently pushed him while nervously looking at your hands.

— Fool.

— For you, of course — he cooed as he took your chin in his hand and forced you to look at him. His cheeks were still flushed, but you noticed that his skill to seduce without seeming like an inexperienced teenager had returned, and that's where your first jealousy arose because you wished only you could have that side of him.

— And only for me, I'm sure — you grumbled under your breath at having that thought, and he laughed.

— I was born to love only you, believe me.— Apollo said, getting up and offering his hand to help you. — And just like art, I'll be faithful to you.

— Wow, what a great poet — you took his hand, and he took you by the waist, bending down to touch his nose to yours. You never believed in the expression "like a Greek god" until he looked at you in that way.

— Are you going to marry me? — He stroked your nose with his while gently squeezing your waist. You nodded silently like a fool, and he gave you a peck on the lips with a smirk. — I just wanted to make sure, but actually, I don't need any of that to be devoted to you. You're everything to me.

He took your hand and led you along the edge of the small Tiber, which now shone fervently.

•

— Apollo! — You shouted from the reception of the mansion on Olympus, closing the big door forcefully and looking at your husband playfully peeking behind his throne.

— Yes, dear? — You pursed your lips and approached him.

— Where are my things?

— Which ones? — He played dumb, and you sighed.

— From my bedroom at the university, where are they?

—In your room...— you raised an eyebrow — here.

You growled and pulled him to come out from behind the throne.

— I told you it would be until I graduated.

Apollo pouted and slumped his shoulders.

—But I miss you.

You smiled and hugged him.

— I miss you too, but— you stepped back and showed the ring on your ring finger —I have this, darling, and that's enough to scare off my classmates. I don't need to come down from Olympus every day when I can be in the dorms.

Apollo nodded regretfully.

— Alright, alright...— he snapped his fingers and smiled at you — everything is already in your silly university dorm.

You smiled and gave him a kiss. As you started making your way to the exit, he sighed.

— I'll see you tonight — he shouted, and you turned around smiling.

The Sun illuminates the beauty of the sea but never tries to contain it, and the sea shows the sun that even in the stormiest moments or the darkest nights, its light never fades.

#trials of apollo #apollo pjo #apollo pjo x reader #pjo hoo toa #heroes of olympus #percy jackson #pjo #lester papadopoulos #lester papadopoulos x reader #apollo x reader #apollo x you #apollo x y/n #lester papadopoulos x you

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captainzigo · 3 months

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Welcome to me blog

My kofi is https://ko-fi.com/captainzigo if you enjoy my art, consider leaving me a tip! this is otherwise entirely a labor of love so

**i still dont take commissions currently, but if you send a request with a donation, there’s a 99% chance i’ll do it. and that remaining 1% i’ll probably just ask you for a different request.

If you are a mutual, DM me for an invite to discord server and subsequently to minecraft server

if you aren’t a mutual, you can send DMs and asks to my sideblog @snapewife-divorce-lawyer

that’s a bunch of pictures of my oc(/ponysona) Prickly Pear. she’s a cowgirl

FAQ below the break

**if you send me a request with a donation you are not sending me a commision. you are making a donation, and i might do you a favor as a result. you do not own the resulting art. and I am under no obligation to complete it or to do it in the way that you like. you do not need to make a donation in order to make a request. You can send asks and DM‘s to @snapewife-divorce-lawyer

i do take requests. i do not currently take commissions, but don’t be shy about sending requests. i can always say no. or fuck it up really bad.

this is my art blog. you can send me asks and DMs at my other blog @snapewife-divorce-lawyer any asks you send me should be like Strongbad emails. one paragraph. no attachments. unless you are sending me refs.

i reblog most stuff at my other other blog: @3amgaypotion

you are fine to DM me, but remember i am not obligated to respond at all.

in any interactions, please keep in mind that i am a stranger on the internet and act accordingly

i am autistic. i say this because representation matters, but also because i would like to ask that you please be very frank with me. i don’t even really need your patience. just say what you mean and we will get along fine.

you most certainly can draw any of my ocs. i’d love that acually. tag me

you can redraw, dub or do whatever to my works with credit. i expect credit to include clickable links. also please try to keep the spirit of the original work. don’t add nsfw subtext for example. don’t redraw a ship art as a ship with an inappropriate age gap, and so on.

do not post my art on other platforms. do not repost my art period. I don’t really exist on other platforms since I deleted Twitter. So if you see my stuff on other platforms, it’s not me.

i’m in my twenties. i keep my blog SFW as a strict rule. PG13 except i swear a lot more. i do not keep myself that way, and i have no aversion to that sort of content, but i keep all of my posts SFW.

in my opinion, all romance real or fictional should be between people who are not related, similar in age, doing age appropriate things, all with mutual consent. i am not interested in witnessing or interacting with anything outside of these parameters.

i am a trans woman. i am also bisexual. i am also poly and demi since im listing things. i am out online becasue i know how important it is to know that you aren’t alone.

if you follow me and you post art, regardless of frequency or perceived quality, i want to be mutuals. shoot me a message or something

do i take constructive criticism? NO 🖕👹🖕 FUCK YOU!!!!!!! GET BLOCKED IDIOT!! unless you are a marginalized person who feels i have unintentionally made you uncomfortable somehow with my art or otherwise. in that case i am sorry and you do me a great favor by calling me out. OTHERWISE FUCK YOU DUMBASS IF YOU DONT LIKE MY ART GO DRAW YOUR OWN 🖕🖕🖕🖕

i don’t have a DNI list, but i am pretty left politically so you can probably imagine what’s on there.

“i hate bronies” i don’t necessarily hate you if you self identify with that label. i like to make myself off-putting to keep creeps away. i talk about it more in this post

i don’t hold a lot of nostalgia for old brony stuff. infact it’s quite the opposite

i like all generations of mlp including the new stuff. gen 4 is just the one i grew up with

why is my header aurora, bori and alice from the best gift ever? well that would be because i hate them like a mother hates a child. like the sun hates the moon. like sickly victorian child hates the slightest morsel of bread.

i often draw stuff about cozy glow x flurry heart. this is with the understanding that cozy glow spends about a decade turned to stone. nullifying the age gap.

i am dyslexic. i spell stuff wrong all the time and i type weird. please don’t bother correcting me. wooptydoo your brain is wired normally. sending you a medal.

i’ve had the same username since i debuted on the internet. zigo is the name of an oc i made that i dont really talk about anymore. zigo is a fine enough nickname and at least one person calls me that irl

#prickly pear #my ocs

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puppiekit · 19 days

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I think the funniest thing ever to me is seeing people on tumblr preach "transandrophobia bad" but then you look at the transandrophobia tag and its basically just "transmascs are not cis, do not have cis privileges, and still face oppression / societal discrimination" and "I have personally faced (X) and (Y) issue because of my tansmasc identity"

.... Aka literally no different from any other minority on planet earth talking about their issues.

But for some reason people on tumblr want to tell you acknowledging this issue specifically, and putting a name to it, is not only bad (because for some reason acknowledging that transmascs have issues = claiming cis men are oppressed...? Because idk people feel the need to make shit up);

but actively harmful to transfems (And I'm going to be blunt here: acting like transfems are the only ones who have problems, or are the only ones allowed to talk about their problems, is so incredibly horrible it's actually insane. And quiet frankly very infantilizing).

To be quiet frank it only boils down to the communities continuous hatred for masculinity. Nobody wants to admit the fact that their community will never be a truly safe space before they stop labeling people "good" or "bad" dependent on who they are or how they chose to identify. It's harmful when cis people do it, and it's equally as harmful when queers do it.

And don't even get me started on the fact that a large part of this pointless beef is rooted in the communities refusal to acknowledge intersectionality (aka a bunch of white people unable to grasp the fact that they are not the default and peoples race can play a part in their gender, how it is perceived, and how it effects their oppression... Including masculinity).

I know this is going to piss a bunch of people off but to be entirely honest I was raised a woman for 18+ years, and I still socially pass for a woman NOW, and the shit I get in my day to day life does not even compare to the amount of hostility I face FROM MY OWN COMMUNITY as a transmasc.

At least a random person on the street will be blatant about their hatred for me, trans or not. The people in this community will instead manipulate and gaslight and try to convince you their crap treatment towards transmascs is "a good thing" or "good allyship". No, hating others for identifying a way you don't like and and "betraying their womanhood" does not make you a good ally to anybody, and especially transfems -- in fact, I'd say you're kind of throwing them under the bus by using them as an excuse to be a terrible person.

Whatever... Ignore my rant... I'm tired of people being terrible to eachother. And also it super pissed me off as a POC to see people compare talking about the problems transmascs face to "what if white people claimed they were being discriminated against for being white?!?!?!" as if that is anywhere near the same..... Like are you a legitimate dumbass or what? Why the hell do you people always use POC and their experiences as leverage against others.

How are you going to compare a TRANS person talking about their unique experiences with TRANSPHOBIA to a person at a societal advantage falsely claiming to be oppressed??? POC are only worth considering when you can use our issues to your benefit I guess

WHATEVER.....

#text post #transphobia #transmasc #transandrophobia

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ginnysgraffiti · 2 months

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(long) imagine.

i'll work on other characters :)

how would timmy's characters declare to you?

&. LEE

it wouldn't take much or little.

in reality, it is unpredictable.

he would be able to perceive this strong connection between you from the first moment, of course, but he would be so tormented by the thought of spilling all his paranoia on you that he would prefer to live with it.

however, you certainly can't say that he doesn't commit, because he would give you sooooo many signals.

the way he looks at you, like the most delicate creature capable of willingly climbing into his dented pickup truck, the way he would smell your hair, prepare your meals if you were to stop at his sister's place.

i mean, he would give you so many signals that your hypothetical doubt would be extremely out of sight.

he would seek constant attention, sometimes in a very desperate and childish way, and then add his usual flirting and perhaps stealing kisses on your cheek or nibbling your fingers.

he would always search for a way to kiss you, but then, due to extreme contradiction and lack of morals, as soon as you get too close he will do everything he can to turn away and hide his embarrassment, lowering his head and rubbing his messy curls against your lips instead of actually support your boldness.

he would probably declare himself on a desolated hill away from the noisy traffic or rush hours of the city, or perhaps in some gas station or even in some mcdonald's while you both enjoy your burgers at 10pm.

however, even though it may seem like a frank and decisive action, he would immediately need cuddles and small kisses to confirm that he is not just an extreme burden to you but the guy you desire to date.

he would immediately call his sister, in tears, to tell her the news.

&. PAUL ATREIDES

paul would do anything to catch your attention.

anything.

to him, you are absolutely not just any fremen.

he would offer to train you, train you in the art of the sword even if he knows well you are absolutely better than him.

he'd help you put on your stillsuit, but he'd quickly walk away if you gave him a strange look, as fremen wear suits are commonplace at all times.

he would call the largest sandworms to show you his dexterity and now habit in the act. he would invite you to ride it with him, hoping that you would hold his waist and not try to challenge him in the best ride.

he's obsessed with the way you ride worms.

of course, he would see you in his every vision. happy, perhaps provocative or exciting visions that he just wants to see come true.

his stiff, masculine and proud composure would slowly collapse in your presence, that's for sure.

paul would even feel so scared of coming out in a way that might go against your fremen tradition that you'd find him with stilgar every day, talking like two best friends dedicated to gossip, while he would have asked him for professional advice that he would never have revealed to you.

he would finally declare under a warm and cosy night under a sky full of bright stars while your bodies lay and melt between fluffy sand dunes.

&. HAL

there's no need to specify or even explain it: hal would make you live in luxury.

but i mean, luxury.

even if you had never broached the topic openly or even just shared the idea, you knew he wanted you as a queen.

the queen. his queen.

he would always find a way to carve out time for you, whether for horseback riding in the damp woods around the castle or for little night chatting after dinner.

he wasn't a man of many words, you knew it well and you took note of it since the beginning.

however, his tone was always sincere with you, as he even indulged in light rivers of alcohol when you were in his company, he always trusted you.

he loves how you treat him.

not like the king, not like any of the high ranks he was labelled with.

just like the man he was, the most gorgeous man you had ever seen.

this turned him on like hell, because you craved him as a person, you wanted him as a man, and you treated him like your closest friend.

hal, in fact, would never declare himself with sappy words. he's a man of action, that's for sure.

however, we're talking about you, and that means he would slip out the topic during a delicious dinner, followed by a quick and double-meaning suggestion to join him in his room once full.

finally, hal would make such an elaborate speech that your eyes would get watery, and maybe who knows, directly focusing himself on actions?

#timothee chalamet #timothee chalamet x reader #timothee x y/n #timothée chalamet #timothée x reader #&. LEE #&. PAUL ATREIDES #&. HENRY V #&. HAL

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feelmyskinonyourskin · 9 months

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How to Say I Love You [Five Things Trope]

Pairing: Frank Castle x AFAB Reader

Trope de Sept Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Five Things style 1. Snippets of interactions between characters, with a common theme, showing five instances that follow the pattern and one that doesn't. "The four times Frank thinks 'I love you' and the one time he actually says it."

Warnings: 18+ (don’t interact if your age is not in your bio). No use of Y/N. AFAB Reader, Fem pronouns. No direct sexual action/SMUT, but it’s mentioned enough that I’m marking this as 18+. Mentions of pregnancy and miscarriage, mention of a hospital, mention of blood.

WC: 2,500

*I never give permission for my fics, manips, or any other original creation I post on this site to be copied, posted elsewhere, translated, or fed into any AI program. The only platform I currently post anything on is Tumblr. Thanks!*

The first time Frank realized he loved you was in the afterglow of a particularly raunchy round of sex. How cliche, he thought to himself.

You laid beside him, all doe-eyed and radiant looking, staring into his eyes as though you were trying to stare into his soul. And oh god, how you did, and you didn’t even know you were doing it.

“What’s going through your head, big guy?” you asked, stroking his face and trying to smooth away the crease that had formed across his brow. How easily you could clock when his brain was working too hard and his thoughts were a million miles away.

“Thinkin’ about how beautiful you look.”

Which was partially true. After all, your beauty was one of the many things that made him fall in love with you.

You wouldn’t have suspected Frank Castle was one for pillow talk, but every time you fell in bed together, he managed to surprise you.

And like always, you saw right through him.

“That right?”

You both decided it was best not to put a label on this, whatever this was. Talking about feelings teetered a tightrope that was dangerously close to that. Especially talking about feelings like love right after sex. Not to mention the amount of his stuff that had begun taking up home in your place and vice-versa. No, you wouldn’t mention the hoodie he left every time he went on a long job so that you’d have something of his to wrap you in comfort, or the little notes and snacks you’d slip into his duffle before he left in the morning. Or the more and more frequent sleepovers that involved no sex, just wanting to be near each other. Nope, neither you nor he wanted to bring it up. He especially didn’t want to let on that the L-word was dancing on the tip of his tongue.

He shook his head and held back a smile.

“Okay, well whenever you’re ready to spill, I’m all ears.” you said, coy smirk painting your lips as you leaned in and rested your head against his chest, falling asleep to the steady sound of his heartbeat.

Goddamnit, he was down bad.

—

The second time Frank realized he loved you was in spring. The trees in Central Park were all in bloom and you danced down the path beside him, reveling in the recent break in the weather and the sunshine.

He had to chuckle, how pretty you looked when you turned your face upward to the glow of the sun and asked,

“Frankie, can we get ice cream?”

“Darlin, it’s still under 60 degrees.”

You took his hand and led him through the park, despite his protestations that it was too early in the season for frozen treats.

You almost looked like a real couple, hand in hand sauntering along, not really in a rush to get anywhere and stopping every so often to admire the park.

You paused, suddenly turning about face on the path and pulling him along with you.

“Sweetheart, what’s up? Ice cream’s this way.” he pointed over his shoulder

“Ah. You’re right. It’s still too cold.”

You never admitted he was right. About anything.

Frank glanced behind him, making sure he clocked anything you might even think could be a threat. Then he saw it, the reason you so suddenly changed course.

Central Park Carousel, the sign read, big arrow pointing in the exact direction you had been heading.

You knew what happened to his family and though he didn’t talk about it (because again, talking about feelings wasn’t what this was supposed to be) you saw the toll it took on him emotionally.

You wanted him to have a day clear and free of worry and memories.

You were being thoughtful and proactive about his emotions. Damnit, he was so in love with you.

—

The third time Frank realized he loved you, much like the first time, was late at night. This time, there was no steamy sex involved, just a lot of blood and bandages.

Damnit, he never wanted you to see him like this, see who he is on the job, what it turns him into. Sure, you knew he was the Punisher and you knew he killed people, but it’s different to see it up close.

He went to your place. Rationalization rattled around his head that your apartment was closer and getting to you to stitch him up instead of trekking all the way to his place would greatly decrease his chances of bleeding out.

But deep down, he knew that wasn’t the truth. Maybe it was because he missed you, maybe he really just wanted the comfort of your body beside his after an exhausting night, or maybe he realized how deep in it he was and wanted you to see this side of him before it was too late for both of you, so you could shun him away and break his heart like he deserved.

“Happiness is a kick in the balls just waiting to happen” he once told Curtis, so here he was, trying to self-sabotage and kick his own balls before life could do it for him.

But you didn’t even bat an eye when you swung open the door to your apartment and found him standing there, mangled and bruised.

“That one might scar.” you commented as you tied up the thread on the stitches

“Never too worried about em lookin pretty.”

“That's okay, your face is pretty enough.” you said, beginning the process of cleaning up the wipes and blood and bandages littering your bathroom counter

He shook his head with a chuckle, trying to hide the blush growing across his face.

“Besides, it gives you character.” You kissed him on the temple as you exited the bathroom.

He placed his elbows on his knees and bent over with a sigh, biting his tongue until you were out of ear shot.

“Love you too” he whispered under his breath

—

The fourth time Frank realized he loved you was on Mother’s Day. It had become his ritual, visiting their graves on important days. Mother’s Day was one of them. Afterall, some of his favorite memories of Maria were of her being the most amazing mom to their kids.

You insisted on going with him, not wanting him to be alone and drowning in the Frank Castle pity party.

“Stop being so fucking thoughtful cause it’s making me love you more.” he wanted to shout, but he didn’t. Instead he just nodded and smiled and held your hand in silence the entire drive from his apartment to the cemetery, not letting go until you’re well out of the truck and up the familiar path.

You gave him space once you came within reach of the grave. Peonies for Maria, daisies for Lisa and carnations for Frank Jr.

You sat together on the damp earth in silence for a long while. Your hand absent-mindedly rubbed and scratched his back and you wiped away a few tears that fell from his eyes.

He thought about saying it right then and there, admitting to you finally how much he truly loved you. He opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it, instead just keeping the silence that hung between you.

On the off chance you didn’t run screaming in the other direction when he finally told you, he didn’t want to do it here. To taint a special new moment with the ghosts of his past and meld a new beginning with the old life he was so desperately clinging onto. So he didn’t say anything, eventually rising to his feet and taking your hand once more to walk back to the truck.

—

The first time Frank Castle laid eyes on Karen Page was in a hospital. Here he was again, stalking the halls of a hospital with the same laser focus on his mission. And there was Karen, standing stone-faced, arms crossed in front of her chest.

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“The fuck she does,” he tried to push past her

“Frank,” Karen shoved against his shoulder. Goddamnit, why was she nearly as stubborn as you? “She doesn’t want to see you.”

“The hell you mean, she doesn’t want to see me? She’s not answering my calls and I haven't heard from her in days so I go to her place and she's not there but there's blood on the bathroom floor and I gotta call everyone in her contacts just for you to give me a cryptic ‘she’s in the hospital’ with no details.”

Karen looked to the ground, avoiding his gaze.

“Then I gotta go to every hospital on the west side just so you can tell me she doesn't want to see me? What the fuck happened?”

Karen just shook her head.

“Go home Frank. She’ll call you when she’s ready.”

If there was one person who could get Frank to stand down, it was Karen, which was precisely why you called her.

“Well he’s gone. For now. But you know he’s gonna come back and you’re gonna have to tell him eventually.” she said with a sigh, plopping down in the chair next to your hospital bed

“I know. I’m just scared of how he’ll react.” you replied, gnawing at your bottom lip

She nodded knowingly.

“I’m gonna go hunt down some coffee. We both look like we need it.”

You almost fell asleep in her absence, until a loud crash came from behind the curtain drawn around your bed.

“Shit,” a gruff voice rung out amongst the beeps and whirs of the medical machines you were connected to.

“Frank?”

Sheepishly, he poked his head around the curtain, seeing you in your pitiful state for the first time.

“Hey sweetheart.”

You swore you’d never heard this giant, tough man be more timid in his life.

“How are you here?” you asked with a sigh, rubbing at your temple

“Snuck in the window.”

“Okay, you’re never allowed to call me stubborn again.” you joked, causing a smile to crack along his hardened face

It broke the tension enough that he closed the gap between you, gently sitting on the edge of the bed and taking your hand in his.

“You gonna tell me what happened, or why you don’t wanna see me?”

A sigh escaped your lips, tears threatening to spill over as you dreaded having this conversation with him.

“I didn’t want you to be mad,” it came out as almost a whisper.

“Why would I be mad?”

“A couple weeks ago– I realized my period was late. So I took a test and it was positive.”

Frank’s face went stoic, brown eyes usually so full of warmth when they looked at you now steely black.

“You didn’t tell me?”

You shook your head and continued,

“I was scared to tell you. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do about it anyway, so I figured there was no point in telling you until I decided. I didn’t know if that was something you ever wanted again and especially with me.”

He listened as you rambled, not once taking his gaze off of you as he continued to grasp your hand in his.

“But then yesterday,” you continued, “I started bleeding. I knew it probably meant I miscarried. But then the bleeding just didn’t stop. So I went to the ER. And they said I hemorrhaged. And I had surgery this morning.”

“What was your plan? Just never gonna tell me?”

“I don’t know Frank, I wasn’t really thinking things through, okay? I didn’t want you to be with me just out of obligation!”

“You think I’m here out of obligation? You think I snuck through a third story window out of obligation?”

“I knew you and Maria got married quickly because she got pregnant. You’re just so fucking noble and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to do something that was ‘correct’ and end up miserable and resenting me. I know this isn’t the kind of life you want anymore. I know I can’t replace her.”

“Hey!” he retorted, leaning in to get closer to you “Look, I loved my wife. Even before she got pregnant, I knew she was the one, yeah? There was not a single moment I regretted my life with her. And there is not a single moment I’ve regretted with you, except whatever the hell I did to make you think you had to hide this from me.”

The tears were now flowing down your face and you had to look away from his intense stare. Taking a moment to choke back a sob before you spoke again, your words came out hushed.

“But there’s the difference Frank, you loved her. Even before she got pregnant, you loved her. But because you loved her so much, I don’t know that you’ll ever love me. Or anyone else for that matter.”

“I didn’t think I could either,” he sighed “but then you came along. And no matter how much I tried to push you away, your stubborn ass just kept comin.”

“What are you saying Frank?”

“I’m sayin that I love you.”

“You’re not just saying that cause I’m all sick and pitiful?” you asked

“Nah. I’m sayin it because you being all sick and pitiful scared the shit outta me enough to finally say it out loud. But I been thinkin about it a while.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Frank?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.”

The widest smile you’d ever seen grew across Frank’s face. He leaned forward slowly, cupping your jaw and placing the most gentle kiss on your lips. You had to smile as he pulled away, so elated that you almost forget where you were and that you were in a very unglamorous hospital gown in a very unromantic hospital room.

“So what happened with your surgery? You gonna be okay?” he asked, giving you another look up and down

“Yeah. They got me all fixed up and as long as the next blood transfusion takes, I’ll be out of here by tomorrow.”

“Hey” he took your chin in his large hand, making you look at him “Don’t you ever keep something like this from me okay? I promise, I won't be mad. I just wanna be here for you cause I love you.”

The monitor beside you beeped, indicating your heart skipped a beat when he said it again.

“I love you too, big guy.”

#frank castle x reader #frank castle #the punisher #jon bernthal #trope de sept #five things fic #nmcu

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dalekofchaos · 1 month

Text

Chloe Price is a lesbian

Every now and then I see people headcanon Chloe as Bi or pan. While that isn't bad, I just have to strongly disagree and I would just ignore people's opinions I disagree with. Then I see some disgusting people shipping Chloe with David, Nathan, Frank and Damon and....I just have to make this post.

Chloe Price is a lesbian. There is no evidence of her being interested in men. People can experiment and then realize they are gay and only interested in one specific gender. Just like Willow Rosenberg is a lesbian.

“But Joyce said Chloe had a boytoy phase and had condoms” Joyce is an idiot. Also, that really confirms that it was nothing ever really serious for Chloe. most lesbians dated/kissed/fucked guys before realizing they had no REAL attraction to guys or accepting that. Compulsory heterosexuality guys. If she really feels attraction to guys than yes she is bi but there is a possibility she was with guys because she didn’t realized she had no attraction to them or didn’t accept that.

As for condoms. Condoms aren’t used just on guy’s dicks, they can be used on sex toys to have safe sex with cis girls too (btw yes you can get stds by sharing sex toys in sex without using condoms or sharing the same condom while doing it). and also consider this: trans girls

Before you say Chloe said Jeffershit is “hot for a teacher” gay people can say someone of the opposite sex is attractive, that doesn’t make them Bi or straight. They can see beauty but know they aren’t really attracted, also she was just fucking with Max. You do realize Chloe was fucking with Max, right?

In the scene “boys are so gross”, calls her boy toy phase hella stupid and when max mentions that she couldn’t see Chloe with any of the boys there she says “that’s because you have a good eye” and that she was glad that Rachel had rescued her which to me sounds like a “I thought a had thing for boys and had boy toy phase (as she calls it) but then Rachel made me realize I actually like girls only”

There is literally enough evidence in BTS and LIS to deduce that Chloe Price is interested in girls only.

in 2015 Ashly Burch said “I think Chloe is sexually fluid. I don’t think she really likes to label herself in any particular way” buuuuuuut

in 2018 in the farewell stream:

“When they read over their predictions Ashly said (in reference to the thing about them each being on their 2nd boyfriend) ‘clearly Chloe hadn’t realized some stuff yet’ lol” (as in she didn’t realized yet that she didn’t like boys and liked girls aka lesbian)

Then in LIS:TC Wavelengths. Chloe says this in Steph's flashback

"Check out all these booths pretending they give a shit about us for one month out of the year."

Vocal confirmation about Chloe's sexuality.

Also Chloe's concept art, you literally couldn't get a more queer answer if Ann Bony rose from the grave and slapped you with a pride flag

I blame DONTNOD/Deck 9 and Square Enix for not allowing Chloe to be more overtly forward with her queerness. To me, Chloe is a butch lesbian and Zak Garriss can go to hell with his "probably gay" bullshit.

Say it with me kids. Chloe Price is a lesbian.

#Life Is Strange #Chloe Price #Amberprice #Pricefield #Amberpricefield #Max Caulfield #Rachel Amber #Chaseprice #Marshprice #Pricemarsh #Pricechase #Pricerich

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frankcastlescumslut · 10 months

Text

A House in Nebraska

pairing: frank castle x f!reader

word count: 3.8k

warnings: gore, violence, minor character death, amy bendix (lol), language, angst!!, eventual smut

summary: He was afraid of you. Afraid that you had made up your mind and had enough of him, that this was the final straw. But the worst thing, he decided, was the possibility that this, that he, was enough for you—that you would pledge your loyalty to a man like him. To a life like this.

a/n: hey! I’ve been sitting on this idea for months and finally ready to work on it :) this will definitely be a two-parter(maybe more), but I’m selfishly enjoying this little AU loosely following season 2!!!!

next chapter

comments/reblogs/likes are so appreciated, I love to hear your thoughts <3

“So… how did you guys meet?” “Stay still.” The strong stench of rubbing alcohol burned your nostrils as you leaned over, her foot tapping mindlessly beneath her crossed legs. “You didn’t answer my question.” “Amy,” you interrupted, her blue eyes baring right back into yours. “If you want me to paint your nails, sit still.” She huffed at that. You were used to it by now, never taking her attitude personally because being sixteen was hard enough, so you paid no mind. It was almost reminiscent, a painful familiarity with the way she embodied your sister, but you chose to forget the feeling like your life depended on it. In a way, it did.

Her nail disappeared beneath a glossy black polish, the surrounding skin also falling victim to an unsteady hand. She let out a sigh and continued to count the number of stripes on her socks.

“We met in Nebraska.” “Nebraska?” She sounded disgusted, and the small room filled with laughter. “What the hell is in Nebraska?” “Absolutely nothing.”

Ghosts. Distant memories. Everything was in Nebraska.

It’s where he found you, hiding as some housekeeper in a shitty motel. You were both running from things neither of you cared to talk about while sober, so you didn’t, but he kept looking for reasons to come back.

He blamed it on the esteemed breakfast, a vending machine honeybun, but you saw through him like he was an apparition haunting your strained heartstrings.

Come with me, he asked. Where to? You didn’t really care.

You were in too deep by the time you made it to Michigan—you both were, and yet neither one of you would admit it. There was something sacred about the secrecy and inability to label what you both knew was love, or something like that; it was too precious, and you avoided any chance at jinxing it.

“But you two are together, though, right?” Amy was obsessed with knowing everything. You think it’s her way of pretending that everything was fine. Fine.

“No.” “Oh.” She straightened a bit, and you didn’t miss the way her brows furrowed. “That disappoint you?” “A little.” “Good,” you smirked. “You’re too nosey.” “I call it a healthy amount of curious.” Her back hunched again, and she watched the way your eyebrows scrunched over her fingers. “You guys are shit at hiding it, anyway.” You chuckled at that, manually manipulating her hand to inspect your work. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Oh come on,” she says matter-of-factly. “You guys fuck.” “Amy!” You could feel your eyes bulging from their sockets. “I knew it!” She clapped her hands before jumping from the mattress. “You don’t know anything.” “Oh come on,” she searched your face, expecting to find any confirmation to her assumptions, instead finding your lack of eye contact disappointing. “Not even once?” “No,” you lied. “Happy?” “Not really.”

The mattress failed to hide the sound of her disappointment as she threw her body onto the spare bed. You allowed yourself to find amusement in her attitude long enough to sift through a dirty duffel bag, keeping your mind occupied with something other than Frank’s absence.

Gaining Amy meant losing Frank. Hour by hour, piece by piece, chunk of flesh by chunk of flesh. The waiting never grew easier, but you adjusted, just like you always do, ending up in motels that smelled like damp polyester and cigarettes.

“I’m starving,” she groaned, pulling you from your thoughts. “We’ll get something soon.” Your stomach gurgled in agreement.

Static crackled throughout the room, momentarily stunning you, before being replaced by a weather report.

High of 89 today with an 80 percent chance of rain, folks! Grab an umbrella and stay dry!

You laughed to yourself at that—stay dry—like you ever left those shitty rooms.

It was bittersweet with Amy. You missed the sun. You missed the late night diner runs. You missed waking up to forehead kisses and soft touches. You missed the easiness of it all, pretending to be two normal people that had two normal lives, and now you were confined to a room that reeked of nail polish and gunpowder. A prisoner and caretaker.

“What do you want for dinner?” you asked, attempting to lighten the mood. “Huh?” “Dinner,” you stated. “I’ll go when—“ A knock at the door ended your conversation. “Amy,” you locked eyes with her, “get in the closet.” Your voice dropped to a whisper as you pointed the gun towards the door. “No, it’s fine!“ She practically leapt from the cheap mattress. “Closet. Now.” Your arm aches almost as much as your stomach as Amy reaches for the door handle. She was so far away, it seemed, and your legs felt cemented to the floor. “I ordered food,” she smiled, opening the door to reveal a woman holding a box. “See?”

It felt like you were staring at one of your polaroids; Amy looked pleased, beaming at you with a sense of accomplishment that she got dinner. That she could do things. That she didn’t need your help—Frank’s help. Her smile was radiant, and for a moment, you almost felt sorry for her.

“You can keep the change,” Amy offered the woman a handful of cash before turning to you with that same naivety.

Stupid, stupid girl.

You knew it was coming, and yet your stomach still dropped when her smile faded and her eyes bulged from their sockets. Amy’s lips moved frantically, but you were too focused on the way the woman’s gun left imprints against her temple.

Stupid, stupid girl.

The woman looked satisfied, puffing out her broad chest while Amy tried to talk her way out of it. “Kid,” you commanded her attention, ignoring the way you could hear Frank’s voice in the back of your head. She stared back at you, tears welling in her eyes, and you hoped to God that she would understand what you meant as you meticulously cocked your head towards the closet.

The stranger wasn’t an idiot, and she shuffled backwards, somehow digging the gun further into Amy’s head. “If you try anything funny—“

Point. Shoot. Kill.

Amy flinched as warm blood decorated her cheeks like a crimson blush.

You wish you could embrace her and muster out a lie—that it’s all over, that everything is okay now, that things can go back to normal, but you can’t, so you pull her into the room. “Closet, now.”

She listened, for once, ducking her head and hurrying to the small space Frank had designated as hers. A part of you selfishly wished she had fought back against your order. Maybe then things would feel normal, and you could pretend that the brain matter surrounding the door frame was some maximalist’s creative direction. Maybe then you could imagine that the body below you was just a rolled up carpet that was being discarded because it was too much of an eyesore for the motel regulars.

You pretended, ignoring the corpse’s vacant gaze as you patted its body, shoving any remaining bits of your humanity down as you pocketed a wallet and fully loaded gun.

Point. Shoot. Kill.

It was one of the first lessons you had learned while on your own, and one that Frank never let you forget. He was right, unfortunately, and heavy footsteps reiterated the importance of the mantra as they approached your temporary home.

There weren’t many places for you to hide, but you made it work, you had to. The bathroom was small and smelled like mildew, but you couldn’t care about the dangers of black mold when you had a target on your back. The gun felt lighter in your hand this time, and your posture felt natural as you crouched against the bathroom wall.

Time didn’t exist in moments like this. The moments where the world sounded like warm, rushing blood and high pitched screeching. Moments where you become reduced to your primal state, clenching jaw and eyes blown wide as they study the mirrored motel room. Moments where you held your breath, watching and waiting in anticipation of who would barge into your temporary sanctuary, noting the constant footsteps..

The footsteps never stopped, not even as they stepped over the limp body and pooled blood. You foolishly hoped you would have been met with the familiar darkened gaze, that he would lift you by your shoulders and tell you that you did good, but the man that barged into the room was ruthless. Cold-blooded.

His gun was already drawn, spraying the mattresses and walls with bullets and fury, sending drywall crumbling and flaking onto your head and shoulders.

Point. Shoot. Kill.

You inhaled, not even considering it could be the last time your lungs expanded to its full capacity, before glancing in the mirror a final time.

You looked like a version of yourself you had buried long ago—a version that hadn’t emerged since you had left home. It was reminiscent of something you fought to avoid, but you couldn’t run this time, not as the pang of gunshots echoed throughout the motel room.

He moved quickly, and you wondered if he was trained on the same basis: shoot first, ask later. He wasn’t the first one you had encountered, trigger-happy and determined, and you knew they always ran out of bullets quicker than they should.

Your golden opportunity sounded like a few seconds of silence followed by a huff of air leaving your lips before you reached around the corner, catching the man off guard as you unleashed three rounds towards his rigid frame.

“God damnit!” he shouted as a bullet ripped through the meat of his thigh.

His eyes were black, rolling into the sockets like a blood hungry shark, and you genuinely thought his teeth would crumble under the pressure of his clenched jaw.

The bathroom was no solace; you were cornered, backed into a cage like an animal waiting for its turn to be brought to the slaughterhouse. Surrendering wasn’t an option. It didn’t exist for people like the one hunting you—for people like Frank.

The thought of Frank coming back to your makeshift home, littered with blood and bodies, made your stomach churn. It meant you failed, that you weren’t capable of keeping up with him, and it was embarrassing. You failed him; you failed Amy, and you failed yourself once again, though that mattered little anymore.

Your golden moment was quickly interrupted by the sound of grunting and a continuous stream of popping inching towards your hiding place. The wall exploded and ceramic tile flew towards your face before you realized what was happening, and you instinctively receded towards the small spot between the toilet and cabinet.

“Come on out, honey,” he called. “Can’t hide forever!”

You could tell he was hovering outside the remnants of the doorframe, probably waiting for you to crawl out so he could pretend to be merciful by putting a bullet in your head, but his labored breathing told you everything he wasn’t. Your guess was a severed artery, and although he should be down by now, you learned to never underestimate a man with nothing left to lose and steadied your gun on the edge of the counter.

“Just tell me where the girl is and we can figure this out like adults!” “Like adults?” You called out, scanning the bathroom for anything that could help your situation. “Sure,” he huffed out. “We can play house after this. What do you say?”

The toe of his boot peeked around the corner, and your body moved before your mind could catch up.

The man let out a guttural scream and folded in half, instinctively grabbing his bleeding foot. You wasted no time yanking the cheap plastic shower curtain from its holdings before leaping towards the assailant.

He looked like a beached shark, thrashing beneath the fogging curtain, but felt more like a mechanical bull as you held onto him with your thighs, tightening your grip around the curtain.

It happened quickly. So quickly that you hadn’t registered the throbbing pain in the base of your skull as you crashed into the already crumbling drywall. You weren’t sure how he stood, how he gained enough momentum to fling you off of him, but your mind and body remained disconnected as he towered over you.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time,” the man coughed, failing to cover his mouth. “Where’s the girl?”

This wasn’t supposed to be the end. This was humiliating, and yet there you were, blinking away stars and choking on dust. You attempted to sit up straight, regaining your dignity, before your knuckles hit the familiar carbon steel.

There was only one shot, and you prayed Amy had made it out and ran as far away from you as she could—this wasn’t a place for young girls, yet you felt small enough in that moment. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be.

Point. Shoot. Kill.

He fell with a great thud, nearly landing on top of you. His mouth and eyes were still open, completely unsuspecting of his demise, and you were hypnotized by the crimson dripping from the bullet-sized hole in his forehead.

It was seamless, and you think Frank would have been proud had he walked in through the blown out door, but he doesn’t. Nobody was coming.

“He talked too much.” Her voice startled you, and you instinctively reached for the gun. “Whoa,” she warned, “it’s okay, it’s just me.” She showed her palms, emerging fully from the small closet.

“Amy,” you whispered, afraid that she was just an apparition.

“You okay?” She knew it was a stupid question the second it left her mouth, but she asked anyway—she at least meant it.

“Fine,” you huffed, pushing yourself to your feet. “We have to leave.”

“Leave? What about Frank?”

You had already limped across the room, adding the new guns and wallets to the duffel bag, and didn’t need to see the confusion on her face to know she was skeptical of your plan. “He’ll find us,” you tried to believe yourself, but you knew he would understand.

You’d had this conversation before; if anything were to happen to him, you and Amy were to find a Madani somewhere in New York. It was a 10 hour drive, but you were confident you could make it in six if you left now.

The room felt smaller with two bodies and crumbled drywall littering the floor. You could ignore the claustrophobic feel, but Amy stood frozen in place, studying the tread marked puddle of blood beneath her feet.

“Hey,” you started, “look at me. Look at me, Amy.”

She was pale, her eyes sunken into their sockets. It was impossible to make sense of how she looked so young, yet so hardened at that moment, but there wasn’t enough time to wonder. “Amy, we have to go, okay?” Her cheeks were soft beneath your palms. You tried to pull her from her trance, begging her to come back to the shitty motel room of death, but she stayed tucked away in the safest corner of her mind.

“You’re bleeding,” she muttered. “What?” “Bleeding. You’re bleeding.”

Her eyes led a trail to the soft curve of your waist. Your shirt stuck to your skin with an uncomfortable warmth, and you pretended it didn’t ache when you placed a few fingers over the gash.

You wanted to laugh at the irony, deluding yourself with a false sense of accomplishment. It was always too good to be true, and you were reminded of the cruel fact that things could always be worse as the sound of heavy footsteps pulled you from the pain. Amy ran towards the familiar hiding spot without being told, and your heart broke into smaller pieces.

It was getting old, the pointing and shooting and killing. It was getting old, and you were tired of calling the shots—you were tired of waiting for Frank to come back.

Fuck him. Fuck him for leaving you. Fuck him for leaving Amy. Fuck him for making you add two more heads to your roster.

Your arm ached as you leveled the gun, and you let out a sharp cry as your skin pulled in separate directions, the cotton of your shirt peeling from the wet wound. It was a matter of seconds before you would claim your next victim, but all you felt was the burning rage towards the man that left you in this position. It was automatic at this point; all you saw was a threat, so you acted, unloading rounds until all that remained was a busted door frame and tear stains against your grimy cheeks.

“Shit,” he whispered, not even acknowledging the body that he stepped over. “No no no, what happened?” He strung a hand behind your neck, forcing you to watch the way his eyes scanned your face. He meant well, you think, but you couldn’t look at him, especially as he thumbed through the tears that escaped your waterline. “Where’s the kid?”

God damn him. “Closet,” you choked out.

He was gone as quickly as he came, and your knees took the brute of the fall with a thud, masking the sound of the closet doors falling as Frank ripped them from the hinges. The stars in your eyes glistened, your peripheral shrinking, and you weren’t even sure if he was real. If he had actually come back, if he had actually left you on the floor, face to face with your bloody work.

“You okay, kid?” He crouched to her level, but she quickly uncurled herself, practically jumping from the small space to push past Frank and joined you on the damp carpet. “Are you okay?” she asked, her brows furrowing as she studied your face. “I’m fine," you whispered, bracing yourself against the mattress to hoist yourself to your feet. Frank hovered, like he usually did, unsure of his place between the two of you. His anger was palpable, and you made yourself as small as possible, limping towards the disheveled duffle bags. He watched you, noting the way you winced with each step. It killed him, knowing that his shit would eventually catch up to you, too, but he gulped it down, turning his attention towards Amy.

“I’m sorry,” Frank started, grabbing Amy’s shoulders before bending to her level. “I’m sorry this happened. I shouldn’t have left.” “I’m fine,” she mumbled. “Seriously. It could’ve been worse.” “Yeah, you coulda been killed. I shouldn’t have left you alone.” He regrets it as soon as it leaves his mouth.

Alone. The bile rose from your stomach and burned the lining of your throat at the indirect insult.

“I wasn’t alone,” Amy snapped at Frank before sinking into the mattress. “Look, this is all my fault. I was the one that ordered food, she didn’t know.” It was humiliating having Amy come to your defense like that, even though she was right. Frank’s stare burned, and your feet involuntarily took you to the destroyed bathroom to escape his attention. “What?” He spat. “I mean, really. I probably would have died but she handled them.” She crossed her arms against her chest. “It was actually kinda cool.” “There’s nothin’ cool about this,” Frank hissed. “C’est la vie, I guess.” “C’mon,” he ordered. “Pack up.” “Everything’s already ready.” She motioned towards the perfectly lined duffle bags that you had assembled.

He didn’t have much to say. He was almost relieved at the fact that you were ready to leave him. You could make it on your own, he knew that much. You were strong enough, but a part of him wished you didn’t have to be—that you didn’t have to deal with his shit.

Amy watched as he shifted his weight outside the bathroom door, his fingers flexing and clenching in anticipation.

His heart broke as he caught a glimpse of your reflection in the busted mirror, your head hanging low as you sat on the edge of the bathtub.

He was afraid of you. Afraid that you had made up your mind and had enough of him, that this was the final straw. But the worst thing, he decided, was the possibility that this, that he, was enough for you—that you would pledge your loyalty to a man like him. To a life like this.

“Time to go,” he finally knocked against the remaining wall. You were quick to listen, pretending that you hadn’t been crying, and you pushed past him. The carpet squelched beneath your stride, and you ignored it long enough to pull Amy into your chest, focusing on the sweet smell of her shampoo. She stayed there for what seemed like forever until she became cognizant of her flickering facade. “You okay?” you whispered, nodding your head as if you could somehow convince her she was. She followed suit, swallowing down any trace of emotion that threatened to spill over, but her eyes betrayed her. Frank had seen enough.

It was too much—too much of a reminder that he had failed again, that his perpetual failings would always result in the loss of a life. Your commitment to Amy’s safety was evident; it was a continuation of what you couldn’t give your sister, and he was ashamed that he brought you back to the place where he met you. “Let’s go,” he cleared his throat. You listened, as you always do, breaking your moment of respite with Amy to shove two heavy duffle bugs over your shoulder, not caring to look behind you as you head towards a bulky van. Amy watched you disappear, shuffling her feet in frustration. “You really should take it easy on her.” Frank said nothing, instead sifting through the empty pockets of corpses. “Hey,” she kicked the limp hand, forcing Frank to stop his search. “I mean it. Lighten up.” “You done?” He stood, completely towering over Amy. His jaw clenched against his will, yet she held his gaze. “Be nice.”

“Time to go.” He didn’t wait for her, so she watched her footing as she tiptoed over the broken bodies.

She lingered in the doorframe, committing the bloodbath to memory. It was fucked that she had to—that the motel room reeked of blood and guts instead nail polish remover and pizza. But that’s how these things went, and you watched from the safety of the van as she slammed the door shut on that dirty fucking room.

You pretended that her clumpy mascara was still intact as she climbed in the van's backseat. She pretended you didn’t jump at the sound of Frank slamming his door closed as he slid into his seat. He pretended that this wasn’t his karmic debt catching up to him.

A caravan of fucking liars.

“Where are we going?” Amy broke the uncomfortable silence, and you held your breath. “New York,” he said with a sigh.

New York, a Madani, and a caravan of liars.

There was a poetic moment of silence and anticipation, and then the engine roared to life.

next chapter

#frank castle #frank castle fanfiction #frank castle x f!reader #frank castle x fem!reader #frank castle angst #frank castle series #frank castle hurt/comfort #the punisher #the punisher x female reader #the punisher series #the punisher angst #amy bendix

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fuckyeslilkim · 10 months

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Lil Kim's Squat Pose Is Iconic. Its Photographer Discusses it for the First Time

In a rare interview, Michael Lavine discussed the day he shot Lil Kim’s Hard Core cover, the booklet, and that feisty, nearly 30-year-old poster we just can’t get enough of.

Even though Michael Lavine has photographed OutKast, Ghostface Killah, JAY-Z, Missy Elliott, Foxy Brown and many others, he didn’t start out capturing larger-than-life rap acts. Like multiple moments throughout his career, he just fell into the next phase of artistry, which was deifying a generation of Black storytellers.

Lavine’s interest in photography goes way back. He led his high school’s yearbook committee as the head photographer. Soon after, at Washington’s Evergreen State College, he studied traditional street photography in the style of Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand. While in Washington, he befriended the group responsible for the record label that became Sub Pop, and documented a then-emerging sound that, to this day, continues to inspire chart toppers. He wasn’t interested in being married to any particular genre or group though, because boxing yourself in isn’t the move. “I just never felt comfortable kind of being pigeonholed in anything to my own detriment. It's not good for business to do that,” he said. “You're supposed to kind of dive in, not pull away. But that's just how I was wired. I wanted to do my own thing.”

After fostering the trust of music industry greats (“I started working for Rick Rubin. He was one of my first clients and he hired me to shoot a bunch of his Death American acts because he was starting to do metal at that time,” Lavine recalled) and becoming a Black Book highlight, he fell into shooting some of the biggest rappers on the scene. His knowledge of capturing Black talent helped. “I was very good at skin color and doing warm skin tones and lighting people,” he said. “For some reason, I think there was this problem with white people who didn’t understand how to light Black people, which was just ridiculous.”

In short, he came, he saw, he snapped. Legacies were cemented in the process, most notably with an image of one of the greatest female rappers that has become one of hip-hop’s most beloved and recreated photos — Lil Kim’s iconic squat seen ‘round the world.

Below, the retired photographer gave Okayplayer a rare interview where, for the first time, he discussed the day he shot Lil Kim’s Hard Core cover, the booklet, and that feisty, nearly 30-year-old poster we just can’t get enough of.

This interview, which took place over multiple conversations, has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

When did you first meet Lil Kim?

The date was 7/30/96. The anniversary just passed.

What was your first impression of her?

My impression overall was she was not like she is, as in the present. She was very quiet and under the thumb of Big Un. Remember Big Un?

Are you talking about Lance “Un” Rivera?

Yeah. He was there. He was the man in charge of her and was kind of in control of the shoot. Kim didn't say a word. I don't think I spoke to her once about anything, but we had a nice rapport in front of the camera. She was great and we made a lot of pictures together, but I felt like there was this circus going on around us and it was just me and her. You get this intimate bond with your subject a lot of times. She's in her lingerie and rolling around on a bed. So, I was trying to be my normal, respectable self, and being professional and making the images with her in tandem.

I would direct her like, "Let's try this. How about coming over here? What if we lean this way?" There were a lot of sets. We had rented a brownstone in Manhattan probably. It was a couple floors. It might have been two floors. So there was a bedroom, a little balcony, a fireplace, and those big doors.

I interviewed Kim last year and she told me she just kind of dropped into the squat pose naturally.

It was very spontaneous. When you're doing photo shoots, at least when I was working, it was an organic process and you let things happen. It's like a creative flow. Whenever you have a creative director there holding out a [composition] like, "Here, do it like this," it just was always bad and kind of nothing. It was like the safest way to get whatever it is that they had in their minds. But to make a great photograph you have to let things happen. You just have to go with it.

There was no layout for her to do that pose. It just was natural. Part of it, I spent a lot of time low angle, meaning I was always kind of lying on the floor, crouching down myself. So, it's possible that one of the reasons she did it was because I was probably sitting on the floor looking up at her because that's kind of how I do. My style was based on the hero, meaning my job was to make people look like heroes with iconic style.

My style was based on making people look cool and giving them lots of options. So, we would take a lot of different kinds of photographs. I used different kinds of lighting. We moved very quickly. A lot of things happened and it was very much an exciting experience. Somebody had a set prop person there bringing flowers. For the cover shot, we had all those flowers in front of the fire, and the bear skin rug we brought that in. It was a normal hip-hop shoot. I was intimidated. It was a very hard day. Everybody was being kind of tough and intimidating, and nobody would talk to me.

Were you scared?

I was never scared, but they all had guns. It's not that I was scared..scared is not the right word. It's more like I felt kind of out of place a little bit. I didn't even speak with Kim. I was dealing with Un mostly, and Un had a lot of ideas. So we were trying to do all the things. I was getting coverage for him. He wanted to have her hold the honey bear. Remember, there's a shot of her holding a honey bear on the black satin sheets? We had a lot of props. I had a props guy. His name was Jerry Schwartz. He was very good and we had brought a bunch of stuff.

So, for example, I remember Puffy came in for a shot and I did one shot with Puffy and Kim together. And Puffy, I worked with him many times. He didn't even say hello to me.

I was just like, “Really? Do you have to be that way? You're so cool you don't want to embarrass yourself talking to the photographer, actually acknowledging him?”

I never really felt at home around Puffy. I think at that time, because I don't think he's like this anymore, but at that time he was — and I know this happened to several other people that I've witnessed throughout their careers — they're really striving. It's very hard at the beginning and they'll push, push, push. They're just about their thing and they don't care about you. So, he was yelling at everybody all the time.

On set that day?

Not that day. Other days.

Oh, just in general?

Just in general. Barking orders. But that day he came in briefly and we did the shot and then he left. There's one shot, I don't know if you've seen it, of them together on a wall. I don't even know why he was there. I can't remember. He had something to do with the record, I guess.

"There was no layout for her to do that pose. It just was natural," Lavine said of the image.

The image came out as the poster, “Lil Kim Coming Soon.” When you're there that day, you have no idea what images are going to stand out. Zero. There's just no way anyone could know. It isn't until there's time to contemplate the session when you edit it and you start to live with the images. And the graphic designer who, I can't remember who it was. Maybe you can find that out.

Maybe.

Let's see if there's a name on here. I don't know. Big Beat records? I don't know who that would've been. Atlantic maybe? I think it was Atlantic Records, no?

Lil Kim was [signed to] Atlantic.

It was Atlantic? Maybe it was, I don't know who it was. Liz Barrett? There were a bunch of people in the Atlantic art department at the time. I could probably look at the invoice.

Do you still have the invoice?

I don't know. Let's see if I do. '96...

If you do, you're the best records keeper of all time.

Yeah, there's Kim and Puffy right there. I have the whole job here. Ed and Carl were my assistants. The location was 24 West 10th Street. That's where we shot it. Here's something for you. Ready for this?

Yes.

So, these are notes from my conversation with the manager. "Little Kim. Female. She's the other woman, somersaults in bedroom, not raunchy. Doorway of bedroom, satin sheets. Blouse, undone. Honey in hair, on bed and on phone. Down pants. Unbuttoning pants. No whips and chains. Classy, sexy, lush, lustful. Candles in the background. Fruits and chocolates." There you go.

The notes Lavine was given prior to the Lil Kim shoot.

So, those were the notes that you were given before the shoot?

Yep. Those were the notes I was given before the shoot.

"Not raunchy" really stands out because I think you conveyed that.

"Not raunchy" — peekaboo, sexy shit.

Oh, man. Well, you did it. You accomplished the goal. And that actually flows really well into my next question, which was what do you believe they were trying to convey with the shoot?

It was funny that they hired me because I was known for not exploiting women in my photos. That was one of the reasons I didn't ever shoot women because back in the day, you were expected to shoot women with clothes off. I refused to do that and I never did it. I think this crouching picture was the raunchiest picture that I had ever done. Actually, that's not true. I did one once. But it was not my normal style, shall I say.

But also, it's an empowering image. I just generally felt uncomfortable sexualizing women throughout my career. That shoot was uncomfortable for me because I had to do that, and I think she was a little unclear as to what she was doing herself. I have no idea. I didn't talk to her. I'm not sure what she was thinking. Years later, I talked to her because we were both well complaining about this image being bootlegged.

She did mention that during our interview. That people were making t-shirts and making their own memorabilia.

It's completely illegal what they're doing, and it's got to be the most bootlegged image of mine. It's like whack-a-mole, you can't stop them. You send out your lawyers and then they just shut down and open with a different name. I could probably go out, spend some time and sue them all and she could, too. Who has time for that? If you have a lawyer and you have a lot of money, you could do that.

That sounds like a lot.

I mean, it's unfortunate. But she was talking about trying to do some merch of her own. The smart thing to do would be to get a deal with Merch Traffic or somebody that does merch, and then they would take care of trying to squash the illegal competition. But I thought that she was going to maybe have that happen this year, but I haven't heard from her.

But the image is just getting more and more famous. It's funny, you never know what kind of resonance an image is going to make and impress upon the culture at the time when you make it. It's rare that there's an instant classic. It's very hard to have that kind of impact these days just because of the nature of social media. Back then, there was a poster and that poster was the only poster. There was no other place to see it but the poster.

Now, it's everywhere.

That image really stands the test of time. Very few images stand the test of time like that image that I've worked on. It's one of my more recognizable images and I have a lot of them.

You do.

So, what can I say? It was a perfectly nice day. She was lovely. We had a nice rapport. The pictures came out great. I continued to work for many years after, and I'm retired now.

What made you jump into hip-hop photography?

Well, that's a funny question because I think my whole life, until recently, has been me falling into things that I wasn't planning on. I was driven to do photography so I was on that path. But if you would've told me my senior year, my fifth year of college, I was going to be shooting rock bands for a living for the rest of my life, I would've said, "Really?" I would've had no idea. But that fifth year [of college] I got a job to shoot a rock band and it just turned into —

The rest of your life?

It turned into the rest of my life. I never said, "I'm going to be a rock photographer." I never said that until I was one. Then, I had no plans on shooting hip-hop. It was an up-and-coming market at the time. I didn't know anything about it. I was friends with Kurt Cobain hanging out at rock shows, and really was unaware of a lot of hip-hop.

I did some hip-hop jobs early. I shot De La Soul, who I loved. I shot a few bands and hip-hop acts that were popular around that time. I got to know a lot of people in the business over time because I worked in it for so long. I was really close with Groovy Lou, who I loved as a stylist. June Ambrose. A lot of people.

But this was a defining moment. That shot, that poster when it came out, it made a lasting impact. It's still gaining speed. At that time, nobody knew who she was.

Did you know who she was?

I might've heard her name but not really. I just got hired on jobs. That's how I learned about people. I listened to the record before anybody else heard it. I got it first. But a lot of people were that way — I would learn about them on the job. That's how you learn because if I'm shooting 100 jobs a year, I don't have time to do anything but the job that's in front of me.

Did you listen to the album before the shoot?

Oh, I'm sure, of course. I don't remember the exact moment I listened to it but I always did. But that was part of the job, and we listened to it all day long during the shoot because that's what we did.

When did you realize that photo was really making waves?

Well, I think it happened over time. Obviously, the poster immediately was like, “OK, that's intense.”

Was it everywhere? Was it all over town?

It was everywhere. And when the poster came out it was powerful. It was a dramatic statement and it sent shock waves immediately. It was clearly influential at the time, I will say that. It was shocking and effective. It put her on the map.

Do you think it put her on the map more so than the cover?

Oh, yeah. The cover, who knows what the cover looks like? Nobody does.

#lil kim #lil' kim #rap #queen of rap #rapper #hip hop #queen bee #female rapper #female rap #hiphop #fashion #90s #squat

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sleepingdeath-light · 1 year

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last updated ; 07/05/24

listed below is all of the playfellow/nsfw content i have been requested to write for welcome home. all of these posts will be tagged with the ‘playfellowxxx’ tag created by clown, including this masterlist, in order to make it easier for people to avoid.

similarly all of the content here has been marked with the community label ‘mature’ to be doubly sure that those who wish to avoid it can do so.

though i will still be using standard formatting tags in addition to the playfellow tag — these will be noted under the ‘tags to block’ section at the bottom of the page.

this goes without saying, but minors and ageless blogs will be blocked if they interact with any of the content posted here.

full ensemble

one shot — “it takes a village” (afab + breeding kink)

barnaby b beagle

smut hcs — general [here]

smut hcs — going through a rut [here]

smut hcs — going through a rut early + male s/o [here]

smut hcs — breeding kink + afab!s/o [pending]

smut hcs — if he’d sub for a taller s/o [pending]

eddie dear

smut hcs — eddie/frank threesome [pending]

frank frankly

smut hcs — frank/eddie threesome [pending]

one shot — “butterflies at dusk” (nb afab)

howdy pillar

smut hcs — general [here]

smut hcs — afab!s/o with hand kink [here]

smut hcs — brat tamer!howdy + afab s/o [pending]

smut hcs — mating season [pending]

smut hcs — subbing for his s/o [here]

smut hcs — poly howdy/wally + neutral s/o [pending]

one shot — “after hours” (nb afab)

julie joyful

smut hcs — general [here]

smut hcs — julie/sally threesome [pending]

poppy partridge

smut hcs — general [here]

smut hcs — using a strap on whilst she’s broody [pending]

sally starlet

smut hcs — general [here]

smut hcs — fem dom s/o who is into bdsm [pending]

smut hcs — sally/julie threesome [pending]

smut hcs — segmented alphabet [j/m/s]

wally darling

smut hcs — general [here]

smut hcs — painting his s/o [here]

smut hcs — neighbours with benefits [here]

smut hcs — giving oral [here]

smut hcs — (partially) sub!wally + receiving oral [here]

smut hcs — being (consensually) used as a fleshlight [here]

smut hcs — inexperienced pleasure addict!wally [pending]

smut hcs — jessica rabbit like s/o [pending]

smut hcs — poly wally/howdy + neutral s/o [pending]

smut hcs — trans masc!wally being topped by his trans fem s/o [here]

smut hcs — getting pegged [here]

drabble — mating press [here]

one shot — “darling” (fem)

one shot — “beloved” (fem)

one shot — “becoming a family” (afab)

tags to block

(if you don’t want to see any wh smut — or if you don’t want to see any for specific characters)

general / all nsfw posts -> welcome home smut | playfellowxxx

#sleepingdeath #18+ only #minors dni #minors fuck off #masterlist #writing masterlist #playfellowxxx

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mojowitchcraft · 9 months

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🎃 STEDDIEWEEN RECS👻

STEVE’S FIRST BRUISE @cairparavel Not Rated | Words: 47k | Chapters: 7 | Complete

eddie’s new roommate sure does get into a lot of fights. a spider-man!steve story. or 6 bruises of steve’s + 1 of eddie’s.

🕸️ Listen, I LOVE Spidey-Steve, and this fic is SO GOOD. Not super Halloween-heavy but has some cute Halloween moments within the fic. Plus I just love Spidey-Steve being obsessed with Lush and their seasonal bathbombs.

saw myself shine brightly in your eyes - deadratz Rated: E | Words: 5k | Chapters: 1 | Complete

It was mostly Robin’s idea. It was partially Eddie’s idea. Robin said she knew the guy through someone else who knew someone else, which is usually how parties this big tend to go. It was also very last minute. ** Steve gets dragged to a last minute Halloween party. Eddie finds him hiding away in the laundry room and decides to keep him company.

🧛Hot lil Halloween Smutty Oneshot!

Excuse me, Nurse? My dick isn't breathing, it needs CPR. @appledaggerstRated: E | Words: 9k | Chapters:1 | Complete

"He saw it there on the floor of Eddie’s closet. Robin and him were there to pick Eddie up for a party and the man had been arguing with Robin about what tapes to bring, her point being that no one was going to let him play any of his music anyway. Steve had been distracted by the dumb VHS tape. It was sticking out from under a magazine with a peeling label that had the word "NURSE" in all capitals." Steve finds a porn tape in Eddie's closet and decides to bring it home.

🏥Eddie in a nurse costume, need I say more?

A Chainsaw and Community Service - @eddywoww Rated: E | Words: 11k | Chapters: 1 | Complete

Eddie gaped at him for a moment, rubbing a hand over his face like Steve's dad did sometimes. When Steve said something kind of stupid. "It's gonna be a weird month, Harrington."

👻Steve & Eddie working at a haunted house together, so cute and fun…then smutty 😈

Kids Like Us - hibud Rated: E | Words: 19k | Chapters: 1 | Complete

Eddie hadn’t meant for things to end up this way – had just wanted to flirt a little and fuck with the guy. But seeing Steve blush like that; the way he’d responded to Eddie? He just had to know. Wanted to taste him, to feel him. Wanted to know what he sounds he could pluck from him, self-assured promises of no more straight guys be damned. Eddie felt sure, deep in his bones (in his balls), that if he signaled to Steve after the show, Steve would follow. And Eddie would signal. Or, Eddie moved to Indianapolis after graduation, ready to leave his memories of Hawkins in the past (where they belong). But when he gets the call to perform a Halloween show at the Hideout, he knows it’s too good of an opportunity to turn down. He’d been expecting a decent enough turnout – it was Halloween, and what else was there to do in a place like Hawkins? Definitely hadn’t been expecting Steve to look so goddamn appealing in that stupid Top Gun costume.

🎃 Eddie Munson dressed as Frank N Furter, need I say more? This whole series is great and I’ve rec’d it before but I love this installment starting out with Halloween fun and smut!

#STEDDIEWEEN #mojowitchcraft fic recs #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steve x eddie #steddie fic rec

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sageistri · 18 days

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https://www.tumblr.com/sageistrii/752517837670760448/how-did-aespa-have-a-bigger-come-back-than-new?source=share

Exactly. Everyone's free to like whatever kpop group they want but it's annoying when a group has success for 1-2 years and suddenly start acting like they're bigger than BTS. Firstly too many kpop stans have no idea how famous BTS is because they spend all the time in their specific stan circles. Charts, numbers etc are all fine but if I say South Korea, there's swathes of random people whose first thought is BTS. If we're being completely frank, outside of kpop stan bubbles, the only other groups that are even close to BTS' recognition is Blackpink and maybe New Jeans to a much smaller degree and it's still nowhere near BTS.

Secondly BTS have industry respect. It may not be industry support but they do command respect because industry players know that BTS did not pay their way to the top and are literally self-made. They may resent it and it won't stop them from consciously or subconsciously discriminating against the Asian group but they know the truth and that does affect the way they talk about BTS. And for listeners diving into BTS to see what all the hype is about, the curse and gift of BTS is that their weakest songs are also their most well known so people are generally impressed by the depth, scope and variety in their discography if they decide to delve beyond butter and dynamite.

BTS have had different eras where they've gone viral or certain songs that achieved the most chart success but in tandem they've also been steadily popular for ten years. In an industry that's known for fickle fanbases that are constantly flocking to newer and younger idols, it is noteworthy how BTS' decline in popularity has so far only been due to them going on hiatus and enlisting.

So comparing groups that have debuted last month and saying this is the next BTS or with another group that had one viral song or even groups thats been doing well for 2-3 years with one concept is just the hubris of fans. I won't say nobody can replicate what BTS has done but it's just damn hard and longevity is definitely a major factor. No flash in the pan chart debuts can replace years of steady quality work and popularity.

This goes for JK too. His debut numbers were bigger than BTS songs and obviously it's a little different in his case since he's from the actual group itself. And it's true critics are more harsh towards some Korean soloist they're not schmoozing with at parties and that sucks, but it's also true that they're aware of the method by which JK got his numbers. He was on the top of Spotify global for weeks yet he did not get the "he's the next big thing" treatment from anyone (except Hugh McIntyre from forbes ig?). This is because, like I said, they know the tactics it took to get him there and while this was a great way to get their attention, when they explored his debut album, they didn't find anything there to highlight. Again this is going to sound harsh but there's a reason Jimin got the cnn and nyt writeups. People inside the industry know the difference in those BB number 1's. They're still going to pay attention to JK over Jimin because the labels made it obvious who they're going to put all their money behind and they'll always follow the money. They're not naive to not know how much a label affects any singers success but apart from that JK will have to do better than golden in the future if his goal is to become as big as BTS or to reach a stage with 🛴 isnt pulling all his contacts to get JK some awards in the US.

I do think we'll see a group surpass BTS someday but fans just get way ahead of themselves. But then again even people involved in BTS' success like bang si hyuk seems to think that throwing money and english songs at any kpop group will replicate their success so I can't be surprised when fans are like this.

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linus-lucy · 2 months

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So i literally haven't written fic in like 15 years, so im not sure what happened here. Sorry if it's horrible but i have to get it out my head, so to tumblr.com it goes. (No beta, written on my phone at work so it may be a little rough)

Chimney/Eddie - kind of platonic, kind of not? Set 5B, post madney return to LA/break up, pre-jonah.

"You miss kissing?"

Chimney abandons the baseball game TV, his head swinging over to stare at Eddie. "I'm sorry?"

Eddie keeps his gaze forward, but it's obvious the game isn't his focus as he picks at the label on his beer bottle. "Kissing," he says again with a shrug. "I know the issues Shannon and I had are completely different than you and Maddie. But I remember when she first left . . . Sex complicates things, but kissing was an easy way to feel close to someone."

Chimney thinks of rolling over in the early morning hours, his body reaching out to place a gentle kiss and curl around someone who wasn't there. "Can't say I've thought abut it that much . . . But, yeah, I do. Any reason you're sharing that particular thought with me?"

Eddie shrugs. "I don't know. Therapy was a bitch today. Frank's was poking at the my time after I was discharged. Got me thinking." There's a silence - though not an uncomfortable one - as Eddie gathers his thoughts. "I don't want to be in a relationship right now. I'm not in any place to be in one. But I miss being close to someone like that."

Chimney gazes at his friend, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Me, too. How do you feel about some platonic making out?"

Eddie finally looks at him, an eyebrow raised in challenge. It's not full force Diaz-sass, but he's looking more like himself than when Chimney first saw him after getting back to LA.

"I don't know, man. Think you can manage not to fall in love with me?"

"You wish Diaz," he says with a grin and leans in to meet Eddie over the empty pizza box.

It all feels very high school - not terribly romantic, but also fun and a little messy. When Chimney leaves later that night with kiss swollen lips and slight stubble burn he can't help but feel bit lighter. He's also looking forward to the game next week.

#911 fic #chimney/eddie #howdie #i don't even know guys

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auteurdelabre · 27 days

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LOSING OUR MINDS TOGETHER CHAPTER 5 soft!Joel x f!reader

Tags: soft!Joel, pining, crushes, fluff, art references.

Pairings: Joel x Reader/ Ellie x Riley / Bill x Frank

A/N: for those of you who like my romances with a little less angst!

Series masterlist here

“Don’t be mad.”

“That’s not a great way to greet me, Frank.”

Frank is giving you a hound-dog look when you arrive at the gallery that week to help him hang pieces for his upcoming exhibition. He often calls you in for times like this, wanting your advice on where to place items, paying you more than you deserve. You know he could do it himself, that he only does it to keep you in enough cash to keep creating.

“I just know your temper,” Frank says as he searches his pocket for his phone. “But a woman came in looking for something to put in her office. Needed something really eye-catching. So I showed her that piece you texted me.”

“What piece?”

“The canvas. The intense one. The one not like your other pieces.”

“Oh that.”

“Yes that,” Frank mocks, leading you into the gallery. “She was interested. More than interested actually.”

You give a hum of a response, helping Frank to hang some of the bigger canvas pieces.

You don’t feel like broaching this subject again. Selling that art piece feels strange. Creating it felt strange, almost like you weren’t in control of yourself when you made it. You don’t really have any desire for that piece to go out into the world.

“I see the AC is working,” you say, motioning to the roof. “Bill did a good job.”

“Uh, yeah,” Frank clears his throat before focusing all his intention on a label next to one of the bigger Mondrian-inspired piece. “You teaching that Ellie girl yet?”

You’ve known him long enough to be aware that this is classic Frank misdirection.

“So how did it go with Bill?”

“How did what go with Bill?”

“Don’t do that,” you say with a gentle shove to his shoulder. “Tell me. How did it go? Fireworks? Did you kiss? Did you tell him you’ve been secretly pining for him for months?”

“No,” Frank frowns. “I was professional and so was he.”

You take a moment to watch the slim man continue to affix the label to the creamy white wall. He doesn’t seem his normally boisterous self. Something didn’t go the way he wanted it to. So you stand there, arms crossed, brow raised. He tries to ignore you for a few minutes, but knows it’s a lost cause.

“I tried to pay him and he wouldn’t take the money.”

“Okay…”

“And then he was just so beautiful and sexy and manly and he knew Hockney and I didn’t know how to ask him out or even if he wanted me to ask him out.”

You’ve never seen Frank ramble like this, all high pitched and nervous as he paces around the painting. Then to your surprise he trips over his own feet, going down like a sack of potatoes. You can’t help but laugh as he rights himself.

“See? I’m a fucking wreck!”

“Just a little,” you say, helping him to stand, brushing the dust from his sleeves. “So what happened next?”

“So then I wanted to be cool and say ‘then lemme treat you to dinner’ but I kept second guessing and freezing and I just kept thinking about what would happen if he wasn’t interested. If I’d read the situation wrong.”

You groan, wanting to shake the man in front of you. You can see so clearly that Bill is into Frank. You want to smash their faces together like two life-sized Ken dolls.

“If you don’t ask him out, I’m gonna do it for you.”

“No you fucking won’t,” Frank says sharply, taking the next canvas from you with a frown. He doesn’t speak to you again until you’re both halfway through hanging, your head cocked as you look at the colorful picture in front of you.

“So? What do I tell her?”

“Huh? Her who?”

“The woman who wants to buy your painting,” Frank says slowly as if English isn’t your native tongue. You wince, unsure of why it feels so weird to sell it. Right now it exists under a sheet of canvas in your studio, not like it’s that sentimental.

“It wasn’t really for sale. Just something dumb I did and wanted to show you. It’s not really my style. . .”

“So have two styles,” Frank shrugs. “One for yourself and one to pay the bills.”

“Van Gogh didn’t have to change his art styles,” you mutter sullenly.

“He also died penniless with one ear.”

You hide a smirk at that. “How much does she want to pay?”

“I told her it was five grand.”

“WHAT?”

Your eyes are like saucers. Even after Frank’s commission that’s a hefty chunk of change. Nothing you’ve ever sold comes close.

“And she didn’t even hesitate,” Frank says with a supercilious grin. “Offered to write the check right then and there. So you tell me Miss van Gogh Jr, you want five grand?”

///

Ellie finds herself feeling strangely nervous for tomorrow’s first lesson. She assumes it’s because you seem cool so far, but what if you’re a shitty teacher? Or what if you’re boring? You seem fun with your weird style and playful attitude. But it could be an act.

She sits on the front porch swing, working on her latest sketch when she hears the faint tick tick tick of a bicycle’s gears heading up the driveway. She glances up to see Riley dropping the bike on the lawn before moving with gazelle-like grace towards her.

Ellie tries to force herself not to take in Riley’s long legs or the way her body movies under her t-shirt.

“Hey Texas,” Riley grins.

“Hey Riley," Ellie replies with a smile. Her heart pounds as the taller girl comes up the porch. Riley unhooks her bright purple biking helmet, dropping it onto the swing.

“Whatcha doin?”

“Sketching,” Ellie says, closing the book quickly. “Practicing since I’m taking art lessons from the neighbor.”

She points at your house and Riley smiles, nodding. “She’s cool for a grown up. Not annoying like the rest of ‘em.”

Ellie nods, agreeing. You’re about the only other person on this block that she actively looks forward to seeing.

Riley collapses onto the porch swing beside Ellie, her dark face shining with sweat.

“Lemme see,” Riley says motioning to the sketchbook still in Ellie’s grasp. Ellie pauses, unsure. She doesn’t really share much of her artwork with anyone besides Joel and you. She doesn’t think she’s very good. It feels too intimate to show off her sketchbook right now, so she clutches it a little closer to her chest, shaking her head.

“Uh, not much in it yet. I’ll show you when I have something good.”

Riley doesn’t fight her, doesn’t even seem upset. She just nods before yawning and stretching.

“You settling in okay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ellie nods. Ellie watches as Riley’s bare leg brushes her own and she wished she wasn’t wearing jeans so she could better feel the warmth of Riley’s touch. Riley is talking but Ellie misses it, distracted by the beautiful dark of Riley’s skin.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you have a bike?”

“No. Mine was stolen right before we moved here.”

“You should get one,” Riley says, pulling a knee to her chest. “Then we can go riding together.”

Ellie nods, her eyes finally moving to Riley’s face. “Yeah, good idea.”

The two of them lapse into an easy silence, rocking back as they watch the lazy neighborhood. David is mowing his lawn, giving them both a wave when he catches their eyes.

“That guy is such a creep,” Riley says with a mock-shudder.

“I haven’t spoken to him yet.”

“Don’t if you can help it.”

“Okay.”

“I’m heading to my volunteer job with the seniors,” Riley says with a dramatic sigh. “Saw you and thought I’d come say hi.”

“Well hi,” Ellie says with a shy smile, watching as Riley pushes herself from the swing and goes to right her bike.

Before Ellie can reply Riley has snapped on her helmet and given a wave. Ellie watches her pedal away, her braids flying out behind her. Ellie feels a strange jump in her stomach, confused at how much she enjoys Riley’s company.

///

That Wednesday you make sure that the studio is the tidiest it’s ever been. With the large canvas sold (and you $4,400 richer) there’s more space to move around. You bring your drawing table to the center, setting two stools opposite one another. Today will be a chance to see what Ellie is drawn to, what she’s already created. Then you’ll get an idea on how to move forward with it.

It’s very early, earlier than you normally are ready to start the day. But you’re excited for lessons with Ellie and amazed that you sold that intense painting of yours. You wonder what about it was so enticing to the buyer.

You walk out your front door, bare feet slapping the path to your mailbox. You glance over at a flash of movement, shielding your eyes from the sun as a tall figure moves towards you at the same time from the yard over.

“Mornin’ neighbor,” Joel offers, his toolbox in one hand, a coffee thermos in the other. He strides toward the truck parked not too far away from your mailboxes.

“Morning,” you greet, faltering slightly when you recall your last interaction with him.

You turn your attention to the mailbox and Joel takes his time gazing at your legs in your shorts, the deep scarlet of your toenails. He has the insane urge to run his palm down your calves, just to feel them sun warmed and soft under his touch.

“You’re up before noon,” Joel teases, placing the toolbox in the back of his truck and grinning at you. “Special occasion or somethin’?”

“Ha ha,” you say drolly, opening your mailbox and finding it empty. “I’ll have you know I’m taking my teaching responsibilities very seriously. I was just making sure everything was ready for Ellie this afternoon.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Big day?” you ask, chin tilting in the direction of his truck.

“Yeah, Tommy and I – he’s my brother – we’re gonna check out some place on Mulvine. Apparently it’s a pretty big job.”

“In this heat? No thanks,” you say with a crooked grin.

Joel thinks your smile makes you look mischievous. He likes the sight of it.

“Gotta pay for those art classes somehow,” Joel hums in amusement.

“Yeah well, thanks to a really nice neighbor I saved some money and get to teach in an air conditioned environment,” you offer feeling shy. “So I guess I owe him a beer sometime.”

Joel feels his pulse tick at that, seeing the way you’re mouth curls to the side almost shyly. You stand on one leg, the other crooked, foot balanced on your calf. You’re still shielding your eyes from the early morning rays, missing your trademark oversized sunglasses.

“I’m sure he’d be agreeable to that,” Joel says softly, desperately wanting to extend the moment despite running late to meet Tommy. It feels like the first time since the two of you met that the conversation is easy and well-received.

“I uh, I looked up that Pygmalia thing,” Joel says, the name getting stuck on his tongue.

“Pygmalion,” you correct gently. You don’t do it with mockery or malice, just like the gentle teacher you always are.

“Yeah, that one. The one you talked to me about.”

The surprise must read on your face because he chuckles and his cheek flashes the hint of a dimple.

“I was wonderin’ if you ever Pygmalion’d yourself.”

“Huh?”

“Like, uh, put yourself in a painting as a character or somethin’,” Joel says wincing at how awkward this is coming out. He’d hoped to sound suave and knowledgeable but he feels like he’s coming off like an illiterate hillbilly.

“No,” you say laughing at his inability to explain himself. You find it strangely endearing to see this broad, tall man looking so overwhelmed just at the topic of art. “I don’t like to do portraits. I used to, but not anymore. Now I like doing sculpture more.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “When I do sculpture it’s like I’m creating something from the ground up. I don’t really know how to…” you trail off, trying to think of how to articulate this. “You build houses, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, when you’re doing that starting from the bottom and working out until you’ve got this big beautiful house, that’s how I feel. Like I’ve just created something from the earth.”

Joel is struck dumb by your words, not in some small part at your ability to bring what he does for a living into it. He’d never considered construction and contracting work to be artistic or beautiful – more just a means to an end. But there’s something about the way you weave your words that has him spellbound.

He must be staring too hard for too long because your neck goes pink and you step back, eyes on the ground.

“Anyway, I won’t keep you any longer. Have fun at work and I’ll see you for that beer sometime.”

With that you twist away, feeling embarrassed at having said something so stupid. Joel watches you leave, feeling that same yearning twisting around his ribs as he watches you enter into your home.

///

Ellie wishes Sarah was with her today. Not just today of course, but especially on days she tries something new. Ellie was all shouts and fists; Sarah was tempered action and cutting words. Between the two of them they were each other’s armor. Sarah was always there to help and make her feel less intimidated, less scared. Now she feels vulnerable as she trudges over to your door, sketchbook under her arm.

You fling the door open before she can even knock and Ellie is relieved at the smile on your face. Over your clothes you’re wearing a yellow smock with ribbon ties that have a lemon pattern printed on them. Your hair is up, out of your face and your feet are bare.

“My favorite student!” you crow, urging her inside. “C’mon in. I’ve got us all set up.”

Ellie follows you through the maze of eclectic furniture and art on the walls. She’s curious to see that your style inside is just as she imagined it – colorful and sort of weird, like you. And like you it’s got a vintage feeling – like something not quite modern. Ellie finds she really likes it.

“So I like to have some music playing on in the background while I’m in the studio,” you explain as you move to the turn table. “Which do you like?”

You motion to the shelf of vinyl records all lined up. Ellie has to stand on her tip-toes to see the titles.

“I know David Bowie,” she offers.

“Good taste,” you muse.

She takes a moment to survey the records a bit long before she reaches for one with sketches of vegetables on it. The Best of Cream. She likes the look of it.

“This one?”

“One of my Granddad’s favorites,” you say with a grin. You nod in approval and Ellie feels secretly pleased. You place it on the turntable, lifting the needle. Ellie watches as you touch it to the spinning record, the crackling sound of contact comforting.

The music flows from the record, guitar and drums and a man’s sultry voice singing about the sunshine of your love. You give a hip shake, shoulders rolling as you attempt to take Ellie’s hand in yours in dance. You’re surprised when at the contact she jerks her hand back as if she’s been burnt, eyes wide.

“Sorry,” you say with your hands raised.

Ellie feels her face flush, her body breaking into a cold sweat under her layers of clothing. The sound of I’ve been waiting so long dances through the air as the two of you stand there. You’re still, unmoving, waiting for her to say something.

“I just. . . “ Ellie looks anxiously at you, faltering. “I just don’t like to be touched.”

“That’s totally fine,” you insist. “I should’ve asked.”

Ellie waits for you to make a big deal of this. She waits for the prying questions and prodding but none come. Instead you’re giving her a warm smile and tilting your head to follow you.

“C’mon, let’s get started.”

Ellie seats herself at the drafting table in the center of the room with its two stools. For the next half hour you take her through a quick overview on what you’re hoping to teach her; still life, landscapes, watercolor, oil painting, sculpture and more. You also encourage Ellie to tell you anything she wants to learn in particular.

“I always thought it would be cool to make a comic book,” she offers, sipping on her sweet tea refill.

“Oh that sounds fun!” you make a note of that in your sketchbook. “I see you brough a sketchbook with you. Mind if I take a look?”

“They’re not very good,” Ellie says shyly. She’s seen the work you have hanging around the studio. It seems like you’re good at every medium.

“I just sold a piece recently that wasn’t one I didn’t think was very good,” you tell her honestly. “I think sometimes we don’t know the impact our imperfect work makes on other people. Plus if you were perfect then we wouldn’t be doing lessons, so hand it over, kid.”

You hold out your hand, fingers curling. Ellie smirks up at you before shoving the book into your waiting grasp. You open it up, looking through the variety of sketches. While her technique may be adequate you’re very impressed. There’s major talent here, just waiting to be nurtured.

“Is this Joel?”

“Yeah,” Ellie nods. “He naps on the couch and that’s the best time to draw him. He hates sitting for me.”

You smile briefly, turning the page to a beautiful teenage girl with a shock of hair and large luminous eyes.

“Who’s this?”

“Sarah,” Ellie says, looking wounded as she stares down at the drawing. You want to ask for more details but Ellie is flipping to the next page, showing you a horse from a farm.

“That’s from Uncle Tommy’s place last summer,” she explains. “He has a farm up here. His wife runs it.”

“Cool,” you say impressed. “I love animals.”

“Me too.”

For the rest of the lesson you bring out sheets of paper and graphite. You teach her proportions and she grasps it all so easily. You teach her smudging techniques and highlights and the direction of light. When three o’clock chimes in the grandfather clock out in the hallway you’re shocked.

“Damn that went by fast.”

“It really did,” Ellie says, looking up at you from her latest work. It’s a sketch of that same horse, the proportions coming along much better now.

“You know when I look at this art I can see the feeling behind it,” you tell her. “I can see the love you have for animals.”

Ellie listens, nodding. You see the graphite on the end of her nose and hold yourself back from rubbing it off.

“Art is kind of magic that way. Plus, it’s like therapy when feelings get too big. You ever have that, El? Where the feelings are so big words aren’t enough?”

Ellie thinks of Riley and the twist she’s had in her stomach since they met.

“Yeah.”

“When you feel big feelings its best to get it out on the page,” you tell her as you begin to set up the canvas. “So your homework this week is to take any big feelings and put ‘em to paper. I don’t care if it’s sketching, painting, collage. You do what works and then if you don’t mind, I’d like to see it next lesson.”

Ellie beams. “Yeah, okay, awesome.”

///

Frank goes over the books a few days later, his mouth curled to one side in concentration. It’s been a very profitable month for the gallery. You dropped off that big canvas earlier in the week and it’s like nothing you’ve ever done. He hopes you’ll make more.

But he’s been so busy he hasn’t had time to go to the coffee shop which means he hasn’t been able to see Bill since the day he came in to help with the AC. Frank is convinced he can still smell Bill’s shampoo in the air some days, even though it’s impossible.

Frank is so focused he doesn’t even notice the hulking figure in front of him until he clears his throat. Frank glances up from his computer to see Bill standing there, his shirt tucked into his jeans and his large hand holding a to-go coffee cup from Frank’s favorite coffee shop.

“Bill,” Frank’s voice is a cracked choke. “W-what are you doing here?”

“Haven’t seen you around the coffee shop lately,” Billy replies. Frank watches as the man places the coffee cup in front of him. “Thought you might be avoiding me.”

“What?” Frank’s eyes are saucers. “F- no, no of course not. I’ve just been so busy this month.”

“Ah, okay.”

Frank feels a flush start on his cheekbones. He takes the coffee into his hands, praying they don’t shake. Bill brought him coffee? What does this mean? The two man stand in awkward silence together.

“Your friend was at the coffee shop today,” Bill announces out of nowhere, his voice almost tentative.

“Which friend?”

“The loud one you’re usually with.”

You.

Frank holds in a groan, terrified to know what’s going to happen next. Either Bill is going to be horrified and think Frank sent you over there to scout things out or he’s going to be a very straight man who’s deeply offended.

“I don’t know what she said, but I apolog-“

“She said you wanted to ask me out to dinner the last time I was here.”

Silence. Frank feels his face turning beet red the longer that it stretches on.

He’s going to fucking kill you.

It’s not like over the phone where he could just hang up and then avoid his favorite coffee shop. Bill is standing there, big and broad and his eyes so beautiful waiting for an answer. There’s only one choice; total honesty.

“Uh. Yeah. I-I did. As a thank you for all you did.”

Bill blinks slowly, his light eyes trailing over Frank’s face for a full moment.

“So you just wanna take me to dinner ‘cuz of the repairs.”

His voice sounds even, almost resigned like he was expecting that. Frank knows this is his last chance. He could pretend like it was just that – just a kind offer of friendship, a thank you for his repair work.

But he doesn’t want that. He wants more.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Bill seems to be gauging something before his brows rise and fall.

“Huh.”

Frank feels a strange curl of his lip begin, amused at the man’s monosyllabic yet thought-heavy response. He doesn’t seem offended, doesn’t seem disgusted. But he doesn’t seem over the moon either. It makes Frank lick his lips nervously.

“So you wanna go out then?”

“Pardon?”

“Wanna go on a date? Dinner?” Now it’s Bill’s turn to look rosy in the face. His eyes are on the desk Frank stands behind. “If you want, I mean. Maybe you changed your-“

“No.”

Bill’s face goes slack. “No. Right, of course. Forget I asked.”

He goes to turn but Frank throws himself over the desk, a heavy hand on Bill’s shoulder before the man can walk away.

“No! I mean, like, yes! As in no, I didn’t change my mind, so yes I want to go on a date with you.”

Frank winces as he hears his frantic voice echo in the gallery. He sounds and looks insane. He removes his fist from where it clutches at Bill’s shoulder and feels immense relief when Bill turns back, his light eyes filled with quiet mirth.

“You always this articulate?”

He steps towards Frank, allowing the taller man to slide back onto the other side of the desk, cheeks burning fiercely. Despite everything Frank laughs, a real genuine laugh that has his eyes crinkling in the corners.

“I’m normally better, I swear.”

“Guess I’ll have to see for myself on Saturday night.”

It hangs there between them, like a melody. Frank feels his mouth curve into an even wider grin, his heart hammering in the best possible way. He feels electric, like every neuron in his body is shooting off fireworks.

“Pick me up here at eight.”

“How about six? I’m an old man that works early the next day.”

“Let’s compromise and say seven.”

“Seven works.”

“Alright then.”

Bill takes one last look at Frank before touching his fingers to his forehead, giving a gentle mock-salute. Frank watches him lumber to the front of the gallery, heading out. He gives one last wave to Frank as he exits, a smile on his face as he walks by the window and down the street.

Frank collapses into the stool next to him, his body weak with excitement. When the excited tremors abate he tugs the cellphone from his pocket, quickly composing a message to you.

[1:04pm] You fucking bitch. I love you.

///

Ellie is trying to think of a big feeling to channel into her art that weekend when she hears her name being called. Riley is striding up the walk, a smile on her face. She’s wearing shorts and a neon crop top that reads sunshine, fireflies, summer in looping script.

“Hey Riley.”

“Hey Lee.”

“Lee?” Ellie wrinkles her nose at this.

“Ellie. Lee. Get it?” Riley balances against the porch railing smiling at her. “I figured since you don’t have a Texas accent I needed to give you a better nickname.”

Ellie grins. “Got it.”

Ellie catches herself staring at the girl and tears her eyes away, looking at the scuff of her sneakers instead.

“So hot out today.”

“Yeah,” Ellie concedes. It is warm out today, in a sticky, oppressive way.

“You wanna go swimming with me?”

Ellie immediately feels her body tighten. She glances at her long sleeves and thinks about the murky waves. She shakes her head, swallowing.

“Nah.”

Riley seems to take this personally because she starts backing up.

“No worries. Maybe next time."

Ellie realizes her faux pas too late. Riley has taken Ellie’s shyness for rudeness. She should have told Riley the truth; that she can’t swim. That she doesn’t want her body exposed. But the taller girl is already striding down the driveway on her long legs.

Don’t leave. I want to keep talking to you.

“Bye Riley,” Ellie finally manages to croak out.

“See ya, Lee.”

Riley casts a polite smile over her shoulder, her smile gone before Ellie watches her jog off in the direction of her home. Ellie watches the girl leave, feeling a crushing disappointment somewhere beneath her ribs. She fumes silently before pushing into her house, slamming the door behind her.

“Woah, what’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing,” Ellie replies sullenly. Joel goes to ask more but she’s already padding over to the couch, her sketchbook tightly held in her grip.

You said to draw in moments like this. To make her feelings come out on the page.

“Tough day,” Joel comments.

“Nah. Just… nothing,” Ellie finishes, not raising her eyes. Joel watches his daughter draw furiously, knowing better than to invade her space. His eyes lift to your window, surprised to see you in the studio tiding it up. He drags his eyes away, feeling like a creep staring at you.

“Making sandwiches, you want one?”

Ellie gives a grunt of response, her eyes fixed on the sketchbook. Joel whips them both up a turkey on rye and plops some chips onto a plate, bringing it over to Ellie who takes it gratefully with a quick thank you. Joel plops into the easy chair on the other side of the room, crunching on some chips as Ellie digs into her lunch.

“Haven’t seen you drawin’ like that in a while,” Joel comments.

“Neighbor told me to draw when my feelings feel big.”

“Good advice,” Joel nods. He watches Ellie’s eyes go distant and he wishes he could know what she’s thinking. “She a good teacher then?”

“Yeah, I like her.”

“Good.”

Joel is pleased to hear this. Happy to know his daughter is being taken care of, that she’s happy. After so much misery he hopes that she can be as happy as possible with him.

“She said you were hot,” Ellie comments around her sandwich out of nowhere. “Told me when we were driving the other day.”

Joel tries to hide the pleased smile behind his sandwich, but Ellie sees it all the same

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