#like the dead dove is one thing that's par for the course in any fandom

[asteria7fics]

I am absolutely in the mood to read an essay about Kyle's portrayal in fanwork 👀 i could read South Park analysis till the cows come home

Alright alright I’m ready to get into this haha.

A couple of things before I start, everything I’m about to say is just my opinion, yeah? I’m no expert, I just think that the way the fandom treats Kyle in a lot of circumstances is… questionable :)

Oookay, let’s GO!

So believe it or not, I don’t actually read a ton of fanfiction. I don’t really have time these days, and when I do I’m so painfully picky about the way certain characters are portrayed that it’s very hard for me to find fics I really vibe with. That being said, I see a lotta shit on this fine website.

Let’s get the obvious shit out of the way. I do not think Kyle should be the default bottom in ANY ship. If we wanna really get into it, my personal take is that this is a holdover from yaoi/fujoshi culture that is so painfully steeped in heteronormative bullshit of one person needing to be the ‘dominant’ and one needing to be the ‘submissive’ even outside of the context of kink. Essentially, one character has to be the ‘girl’ and one has to be the ‘boy’, even in a homosexual relationship.

I’ve blabbed about this before, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about why I don’t think that Kyle should be the default ‘submissive’ in his relationships.

First of all, Kyle is just not submissive. At all. Or I should say, he isn’t often. I think the only context where he tends to submit is with his mother, and if you really want to sit here and defend your choice based on him having ‘mommy issues’, I guess you can technically say that.

Personally, I see Kyle as being very headstrong and, honestly kinda intense. While this hasn’t always been super consistent in his personality early on in the show’s run, it’s certainly has been now. I mean, he was willing to shoot at his friends’ moms in The End of Obesity because he believed so strongly in what he was doing, and why he was doing it. Kyle’s stubbornness and unwillingness to waver on his morals and values is a driving force for conflict in the show, like, all the fucking time, whether he’s correct (as in, the creators agree with his stance) or not.

I bring up his personality in the early run because I do think a lot of the issues I have with his characterization now comes more from early fandom portrayals than anything that’s actually currently supported by the source material. As an example, Kyle being the weakest physically of the main four makes a lot of sense in the context of those early seasons, but it doesn’t really work with his current characterization, if I’m being honest.

This isn’t to say I dislike him being sickly, mind you. I actually think that can be really compelling if Kyle has to grapple with the fact that his physical weakness is at odds with his mental strength.

Hoooowever, I think this has to be done in a really specific way, and this sorta brings me to my next point.

Why are we out here victimizing Kyle so damn much? Like, I get it, bad shit happens to him in the show (don’t talk to me about Humancentipad) but why are we just tormenting Kyle for seemingly no reason? Are we in the middle of a dead dove arms race?

I do think this ties back to this idea of Kyle being a default submissive, and I’ve certainly not always been kind to the kid in my own work but damn you guys are fucking mean to him. What did he ever do to you??

I suppose tormenting characters is sort of… par for the course in any fandom, but man I just don’t see the appeal of it being Kyle that’s getting the brunt of the abuse, especially when he ends up being reduced to a helpless, pathetic little thing. Like at that point just pick a different character, I mean Butters is right there you guys.

I’m not going to act like any one ship leans more or less into these tropes either, I think all sides of the fandom are guilty of disregarding a lot of what makes Kyle’s character compelling in the show. I will, however, take a moment to complain about some of the popular ships that Kyle is in.

Kyman: You know how I feel about these two. A stellar dynamic with so much problematic shit bubbling under the surface. Let’s disregard the inherent discomfort around an open anti-Semite and a Jewish person being together because… I willingly ignore that to ship Yentlman in my main works (rip self read). Even without that bit of their relationship, these two are just too goddamn similar. Both stubborn, both going to extreme lengths to prove the other wrong, OR enabling one another to do some pretty shitty things.

I think Post Covid did it best by showing how they BOTH bring out the worst in one another. While I enjoy these two platonically, I don’t personally enjoy romantic ships that are this toxic.

I’ve also expressed before that I think a fic lives and dies on how Cartman is written, so while this post is about Kyle’s depictions in fan works, I do think we have to consider the way the other half of a pair is written as well.

I got some really lovely tags on that one post I reblogged and word vomited all over that brought up how Cartman, supported by canon, is a severely traumatized individual, and how that can support a more sympathetic view of him (I’m not tagging the person in case they don’t want to be involved in discourse like this but I appreciate your insights and you made a very good point, if you are reading this).

This does, however, bring up a whole other host of issues with their dynamic. If we’re romanticizing the idea that Kyle is some kind of moral savior for Cartman then… man, idk. You guys are gonna have to help me on this one, is that common in the ship? Is Kyle playing therapist with Cartman, and that’s how we’re justifying sanitizing him?

Also, say it with me now, there is no way in sand hell that Kyle would let Cartman top him. I know, I’ve read it, and I can see where the idea is coming from but come on. Kyle is too prideful for that shit. Now if y’all start giving me Kyle topping Cartman and making him fucking beg for that hot Jew sploog then MAYBE I’d be able to get behind this ship.

Style: Oh you thought my preferred ship was safe? Haha no ma’am, because Style shippers are the fucking WORST when it comes to feminizing Kyle.

I respect the Style shippers that came before me with their football star Stan and pissbaby twink Kyle, I really do. However it’s time to move on. I made this point in a previous post (that I know you’ve seen my friend, much love for your support on my hot takes) but for those who didn’t see it, I really believe the thing that separates Kyman shippers from Style shippers is that Kyman shippers tend to treat Kyle like an equal to Cartman, while Style shippers really lean on Kyle being weaker than Stan to make their dynamics work.

What’s really funny to me is that what I think makes Style work in its best iterations is when they are truly treated as equals, because they absolutely should be.

Now I may sound like a hypocrite here because I know I play around with power dynamics in my Styles quite a bit, but I think I make it very clear that even when Kyle is technically bottoming, he is not necessarily submitting.

I also can give credit where credit is due, Kyman shippers do not shy away from how much of an asshole Kyle can be sometimes. Style shippers though? Man, I understand wanting to lean more on Kyle's positive traits (he IS a very empathetic, friendly, driven person that always wants to do the right thing) but he can become 'too good' very quickly when you don't balance those things out with his negative traits.

Kyle is pretentious. Kyle thinks he knows best even when he really doesn't. Kyle is quick to anger and sometimes cares TOO much, to the point of getting carried away and making things worse (rip to Canada).

The only negative trait Style shippers are pretty consistently on board with is him being hotheaded, which is fair! But also? To stay consistent with my current branding, that's like seasoning all of your food with just salt and pepper. Like sure, it adds flavor, but we all know the dish could taste so much better if you sprinkle on a little something more.

K2: I am... Utterly indifferent to this ship. Like, I've seen some cute fanart? But I've never partaken and it doesn't really interest me, sorry gang.

Cryle: Another ship I've never really partaken in, but that makes significantly less sense to me. It's giving crack ship, which is fine? But from what I have consumed a lot of people sort of approach them with all the worst aspects of both Kyman and Style. Craig is not as compelling as Cartman as a foil for Kyle, so when people do lean into the evil Craig headcanon that was common in early fandom, it seems they also lean into the pathetic, victim Kyle tropes that are common in Style works.

I'm sorry if y'all love this ship, I'd never really paid it any mind until recently and while I have read works that included them that I thoroughly enjoyed, I don't think I'll ever root for them to be endgame.

And if your favorite Kyle ship isn't here, sorry to say I don't know enough to speak on them (in fact I shouldn't have even brought up K2 for that reason, but I figured someone would probably mention it since it seems pretty popular).

Look, this is a mess and I am certainly not the authority on characterizing any of these goobers. But you asked, and I hope you enjoyed my silly little opinions. This is in no way meant to be constructive, but if you guys want something more organized and constructive breaking down how I characterize Kyle or any of the kids, you know where to ask!

[hugogetspowerbottomed]

sometimes i wonder what the varigo fandom would be like if like the weird anon and like two fandom members hadn't run through it like a wrecking ball and made everyone scared to do anything here

[dontcallmecarrie]

Moments of A Dying World

Yes, another fic idea. Except this one’s nowhere near as light as the ones I’ve done in the past. [Unless you’re in the mood for a “rocks fall, everyone dies” thing, anyway. Hamlet-levels of death, in this one. Thus the cut.]

Title from Disturbed’s “The Vengeful One”, which should clue you in that no, this is not a happy fic idea. 

Warnings: mental health issues, mental instability/insanity, dubious morality, unreliable narrator, evil Tony Stark, codependency, an amoral JARVIS, not Wanda friendly, character deaths, not a fix-it, an apocalypse of sorts, and an unhappy ending. Dead dove, do not eat—this is me taking everything to the most logical conclusion I can think of.

I’ve asked myself this before, when I came up with TWiFFON: even though we all know that when it comes down to it, heroism is as integral a part as genius is to Tony Stark’s character, let’s play a game, shall we?

What would it look like, if Tony Stark were to to snap? 

I mean, sometimes it feels like part of the fandom wants him to. Some cast him as the villain, the evil mass-murderer who wants to lock up poor innocent Steve and his friends. The man behind the curtain, the mastermind behind it all.

Fine. 

If they want a monster, then I’ll give them one.

Only tricky part being, when and how would this work? Because we’ve seen him betrayed multiple times, backstabbed and tortured, and it all only made him burn brighter rather than break. But hey, if they really want to seen Tony Stark as a villain...

Wanda fucked up. Badly.

So, so, so badly, and the foolish child even thought, up until the end, it hadn't been her fault. It's not until her last moments, when she's taking her last, desperate breaths, and looking him in the eyes, trying to be defiant to the end, that she sees.

That she notices the gleam of something horrifyingly familiar, almost hidden behind the madness, and realizes that her initial attempt at vengeance for her family had gone so, horribly, right.

But I'm skipping ahead, aren't I?

See, Wanda fucked up, when she mind-whammied Tony Stark, back when she first met him in Sokovia. In her arrogance, still high off the feeling of power rushing through her veins, that she didn't realize at the time, the consequences of just what she'd tampered with.

Tony Stark, at the time, had been a genius who'd burned so, so brilliantly, and, though not many had been aware of at the time, had been dealing with mental health issues. As per usual, Tony being Tony, everything he dealt with was with higher stakes, and his PTSD had been much the same way; his mind had been working on overdrive just to carry on with his life.

 Simply put, Wanda's thoughtless meddling was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thing is, in this analogy, the 'camel's back' was Tony’s mind and morals and rationale and psyche. Tony Stark had burned brightly for so, so long, had been a supernova— and, much like the life cycle of a star, it had only take a bare hint of a nudge, for it to become a black hole, consuming everything in its path.

 Tony Stark entered Sokovia wanting to make the world a better place. He left it, wanting to see it burn. 

And so he did, with his suits and connections and devastating intellect.

It was almost alarmingly easy, actually. He'd returned looking slightly shaken, slightly off, but not as if he'd had everything that made him Tony inverted so drastically. Thing is, he hadn't been just Iron Man; he'd also been the Merchant of Death, once.

Tony Stark had, once upon a time, made weapons of the highest caliber, dealt with mercenaries and generals alike with a striking blend of charisma and ruthlessness, easy as breathing. He'd buried it, left it to be forgotten in the dust, after Afghanistan—until Wanda happened, and the rest is history.

Ultron came online, dazed and confused and sanity already eroding from the Mind Stone's influence; it was only par for course, really, that his first introduction to the world was the Merchant of Death’s vicious smile, and a JARVIS whose only concern was his creator's safety and happiness. [If Sir wanted to see the world burn, then he would give him the spark to set it ablaze.]

In another life, the AI would have tried to soothe Ultron, would have tried to stabilize him and show him humanity's goodwill. In this life, however…

 While the Avengers relaxed, and had a party to celebrate the fall of HYDRA's last stronghold, nobody noticed that Tony never showed. While everyone was seeing Thor off to Asgard, Scepter in tow [though Ultron had relieved it of the Mind Stone], JARVIS taught Ultron how to access launch codes and crash stock markets, how to obliterate his enemies. While everyone else returned to their daily lives, Tony set to work. 

  Really, the Earth never stood a chance.

 Oh, sure, it put up a decent fight nevertheless, once word got out, but it was little more than a foregone conclusion when the chips were down. [An enemy had once said Iron Man was “a masterpiece of death. A man with a dozen of these could rule all of Asia”; Tony Stark had a Legion.]

 The Avengers took surprisingly long to fall, but once their team was broken, the rest of the world didn't hold out for much longer. Everyone tried to run, to hide, in the end days; Wanda was among one of the last survivors, one of the 'lucky' ones to have survived seeing her home—her planet— turn to ash around her once again, but it really didn't matter once Iron Man breached the last of the strongholds. She, however, was one of the few to realize just what she'd done, though it was only for a few seconds, in the end.

  Lord Thanos' arrival to Midgard was heralded by a spectacular invading force…which may have been for naught, if the burnt-out shell of a planet was any indicator. Hmm...he could've sworn he hadn't been here before, and yet the ruins of a vast civilization that appeared to have been on the cusp of a new era told a starkly different story.

Nothing was left, nothing but a madman on a throne of ash and dust, nothing but a madman with a smile like bared teeth. 

Fascinating, that.

  Maybe the Merchant of Death tries to take Thanos on. Maybe, with Ultron and JARVIS and their practice with Earth, he even manages to succeed, because this is fire fighting fire, a madman fighting the Mad Titan, the Merchant of Death fighting the one who sought to court it. Maybe years pass and all that’s left is a barren wasteland of a planet with two immortal beings that become the stuff of legends and horror stories, a warning to the rest of the realms that cannot help but wonder at their creator. 

  And maybe Thor, safely back at Asgard, can't help but wonder what went wrong, even centuries later. 

...I told you guys it was not a happy story. The urge to see the world burn means that there’s nothing left but ash. 

Tony’d die alone, the last human on Earth, unless JARVIS does something drastic like try to upload his brain like Zola did in The Winter Soldier. [Which he totally would, by the way, if he ever figured out how: he is fanatically devoted to keeping Tony safe and happy, regardless of what that means for the rest of the world.]

Ultron, meanwhile, is content; his perceived creator [because sorry but I still call bull on Tony having created a murderbot in canon when the Ominously Gleaming Alien Artifact was right there] was to help him complete his mission.

Fun fact: of them all, Ultron’s also the most moral one. If anyone were to crash-land this dimension, he at least would only care about just sending them back, rather than try to kill them. [Not his dimension = not his problem.] Tony would not be nearly as merciful, and JARVIS...well. You get the picture.

I don’t doubt that there’s probably a better villain name for Tony Stark, but I also couldn't resist the idea of the Merchant of Death vs. Thanos’ army.  

[...and the more I think about it the more detailed it’s getting oops]

[thekastlediaries]

"I need you to scream. You're Karen Page he's the Punisher, he will come for you." in which Karen hurt and taken by a villain and Frank is enraged. (I was inspired by the Tarzan trailer)

Hey, so today I actually cracked 1000 followers and I cannot believe it! I’m so happy there are so many people here that like this ship as much as me and I’ve had so much fun reading the stories everyone has written and reblogging the edits and the wonderful amazing fanart. I have so little to offer fandom sometimes, and I’m way too broke to do a giveaway, but I thought if I sat down and really concentrated on filling a prompt that might be enough to commemorate this little milestone. :D I hope you like it.

VIOLETS AND VIOLENCE on ao3

The last thing she remembered was the smell of violets, dainty petals pushed against her nose, the sweet scent invading her sinuses. She’d closed her eyes for half a second to lose herself in the scent, to imagine that he had been the one to leave them on her fire escape. How stupid could she have been?

Now the only thing she could smell was the dank mildew of an underground dwelling. Poorly ventilated and even more poorly lit. The back of her head throbbed and she knew without checking that there was rather large knot underneath her yellow hair, perhaps even a gash if the moisture dripping down the back of her neck told her anything. Her sight was the last sense that came into play, an errant thought passing through the back of her mind as she wondered if this is how it was for Matt.

Her pupils adjusted to the dimness, faint far off light filtering down into her cell, the bars casting shadows across the dirty floor. It wasn’t the first time she’d been locked up, but she had to admit that the clean yet stark cells downtown were a lot more preferable than where she was now.

Trash scattered across the floor, dirt caked in the creases between tiles, reddish brown stains on the wall that leave no question as to what went on here… It was a scene straight out of a horror movie, but she just didn’t have it in her to react accordingly, a calm strangely numb feeling setting over her. How had this become par for the course?

She shifted against the damp floor, dispassionately noting that her shoes were gone and her stockings were now unsalvageable tattered things. Her wrists were free, the expected cold and unyielding sharpness of cuffs absent. Nothing around her ankles either. It was rather ominous sign. Her captors being unconcerned about her freedom of movement only meant the cell was secure.

She sat up, vision blurring for a second as her head swam. Nausea threatened. Best not to move too quickly. She made a mental note to see the doc about a possible concussion after all of this was over. Her surroundings gave her no clue as to who was behind this nonsense, and the only ambient noise was vague whir of a fan kicking off and on. Not enough to offer any clue as to where the hell she was being held. Just fucking perfect. God only knew which set of pissed off assholes this was. She had a real knack for making enemies.

She heard a shuffling down what must have been a rather long corridor, and her heart began to beat a little faster. There it was, that spike in adrenaline that told her she was in some real trouble. Her eyes darted around the cell looking for something to use as a weapon, lighting finally on what appeared to be a spoon. Shit. It’d have to do.

She quickly snatched up the utensil and shoved it down into her blouse, tucking it securely under the band of her bra before resuming her prostrate position on the floor and trying like hell to steady her breathing. These creeps didn’t need to know she was conscious… not yet.

-

Micro described it as a vacation, although Frank wasn’t sure if hiding out in an abandoned warehouse and living off canned goods for two weeks could be called a vacation. Maria had liked short jaunts to the beach, weekends spent in one room summer shacks where they let their bathing suits dry on the line outside and drank sangria on the porch overlooking the ocean. Sometimes when he fell asleep he could still smell the salt on the air, just like it had whipped across the water. He didn’t think anything he’d done in the last couple years could possibly be described as a vacation.

But it was down time, and he had used it as best he could. Sleeping off a fair number of bruises and cuts, laying back to read a book for the first time since a bullet had torn through his gray matter. It was amazing how nimble his mind felt after a few weeks of recuperation. He was raring and ready to get back to work, but Micro wouldn’t give him the all-clear.

Apparently he’d inadvertently stepped into some real shit, snapping the neck of an entitled prick who’d been swinging his dick around a little too forcefully. Not that Frank was averse to rolling around in the muck with scumbags, especially pricks like Kimball Blackwell. The man seemed to think it was alright to hire sex-workers and leave them bleeding in alleys. Frank didn’t like that, and he’d put a permanent stop to it with one bullet.

It was unfortunate that the Blackwell family also happened to be an organized crime syndicate that Frank’d never heard of. Based out of upstate New York, they were old school skull-busters that had been in the smuggling game since it was profitable to pack barrels of whiskey into horse drawn buggies. The times had changed and so had the Blackwell’s product. The family owned a lucrative trucking business now, slipping various shipments of narcotics hidden in tirewells back and forth between the U.S./Canada border.

But had Kimball Blackwell not been such an through and through piece of shit, Frank wouldn’t have had any real interest in taking them down, at least not any time soon. Creating power vacuums in drug empires had a way of creating more problems than it solved, and Frank, despite his reputation for being a homicidal maniac, liked to be a little more prepared when it came to things like that. The problem was the younger Blackwells had been born into an empire, and they were spoiled rotten little shits who got off on hurting people. The Blackwells minions had come out in droves to avenge Kimball’s death before Frank had even known what was happening, which had resulted in this little vacation from reality.

He hadn’t liked how quickly he’d had to snatch up his things and move into hiding, but keeping on the move was a normal part of his new life. The only thing about this whole misadventure that gave him real pause was worrying about Karen’s safety. He’d spent too much time popping by her place, walking her home, trading leads. This was exactly the kind of mistake that could pull her down into the bullshit with him, especially with a bunch of woman hating sadistic fucks on his tail.

Micro’s emails were succinct, nothing dramatic really. All they contained was information about the family’s movements, their dealings and whatnot. Frank poured over it all for clues as to whether or not they knew about her. Finally, after days of dry intel, Frank actually brought up her name, tagging on a short line to an already brief email: Page’s nose still clean?

He expected a simple reassurance, but what he’d gotten was far from it.

Haven’t noticed movement in a couple days. Will check personally. Stay where you are. The wolf pack is still out roaming.

Hours later he’d received a phone call on his burner, but it hadn’t been Micro or Karen on the other end of the line.

-

Karen expected her visitor to drag her up off the floor, to roughly shake her awake. What she didn’t expect was the quiet whisper of a man dropping to his knees beside her. Her whole body went cold when she felt the man drag the tip of one finger down the side of her face, pushing away one lock of hair in a sick semblance of tenderness. She fought the urge to gag as the touch traveled down the side of her neck, tracing along the collar of her blouse.

The man spoke. “So you’re his whore, huh? His little fuckbuddy on cold nights?”

He leaned forward to sniff at her, grunting in satisfaction. “I heard he couldn’t get it up anymore, but looking at you I’m sure that’s not true.” He let out a lecherous sigh. “Does he call out his dead wife’s name while he’s pinning your to the mattress? Yeah? I bet that stings.” He began to finger the buttons of her blouse.

Karen’s jaw tensed, her heart picking up it’s pace in spite of everything she did to slow it. The only shot she had was to incapacitate the man and make run for it. It sounded like he’d left the door to her cell wide open. In the the space of a breath she hauled herself up into a sitting position, putting all her momentum behind the heel of her palm against the vile man’s nose. She hoped the force would break the bone and shove it up into his brain.

Unfortunately it didn’t work quite as planned, and although a satisfying amount of blood spurted out, the man wasn’t lying dead at her feet. She scrambled away from him, ignoring the bellowing roar as she dove for the cell’s exit. An ear piercing scream flew from her throat. “Help! Someone, please!”

Large hands caught her round the waist, hauling her up against a burly chest, quickly pinning her arms to her side. The man laughed evilly in her ear. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t ya? It’s been awhile since I had one who liked to bite and scratch and scream. Too bad that’ll have to wait till later, after Frank Castle is nothing but a bullet riddled corpse.”

He began to drag her down the corridor, toward a door with a weakly flickering bulb behind it. She screamed again, this time her voice feeling ragged. “HELP!”

It elicited another laugh from him as he kicked open the door. “Keep it up, Miss Page.” There was a phone sitting on the corner of a desk in a room with no windows, he shoved her toward it. “Call him. I need you to scream. You’re Karen Page he’s the Punisher, he will come for you.“

She clammed up, stiffening at the prospect. Not a muscle in her body would move toward the phone. Instead she spat at the man. “Fuck you! Call him yourself.”

All the air whooshed out of her lungs when he slammed her up against the wall, one knee jammed between her thighs, a hand clasped around her throat. “Listen, you little bitch. You’re gonna call him, and you’re gonna scream, and if you don’t feel like it, I’ll just have to motivate you properly.”

He raised his hand, a bulky ring with his family crest on it glinting in the weak lighting. She scanned her memory for anything relating to it, but nothing came up. The hand came down against the side of her head, leaving a ringing in her ears as she tumbled to the floor. She barely had time to process the pain before he was hauling her up again. “I already have the number, thanks to his little buddy that came looking for you, but I need your precious voice on the other end of the line.”

She laughed bitterly. “You’re signing your own death certificate.”

He dragged her back to the desk, pinning her face down against the smooth walnut, the tops of his thighs pressing pressing against her backside. With his free hand he removed the receiver from it’s cradle and laid it next to her face, quickly dialing the number to Frank’s burner. Karen tried one last time to escape, bucking beneath his weight, trying in vain to get the heel of her foot up high enough to kick him in the balls.

The man only pressed down harder, listening intently as other end of the line rang. Finally it stopped, the ringing momentarily replaced by a raspy breathing. Frank was never one to speak first when someone called his burner, Karen knew this and so did the man holding her captive. He twisted his fingers in the hair at the back of her neck and yanked hard, eking out a surprised yell from Karen. She didn’t want Frank to walk into an ambush. She clamped her mouth shut, biting down painfully on her lip until she drew blood, but it was too late. He’d heard her already, his voice very far away, small and tinny on the other end of the line…

“Karen?”

-

Micro had gone radio-silent, that was the first bad sign. The second was the phone call, half a second of Karen yelping into the receiver, followed by the sounds of a physical altercation, and then the panting voice of the last man Frank was going to kill today.

“Come and get her, Castle. Or the same thing’s gonna happen to your whore that happened to Kimball’s last one.”

“Where the hell are you?”

More nearly silent struggling, judging from the speaker’s choppy breathing. There was a thump in the background. Frank cursed softly. There was no way in hell Karen would be compliant. He only hoped this was just some moron underling who’d decided to take things in his own hands to impress his bosses. There was a chance she might get out of this alive if that were the case. Frank waited for the man’s response.

“I’m so glad you asked.” The man rattled off an address.

Frank memorized it quickly, pushing away the tinge of red that was beginning to encroach on his vision. This was no time for a mindless rampage. He had to be quiet, and precise and leave no stone unturned.

He ended the call without responding to the asshole, reaching for his ready-bag. He was out the door in less than thirty seconds, running along the rooftops toward the docks, twisting a silencer onto his favorite pistol. The locations these pricks picked were really beginning to be old-hat for Frank. An empty warehouse with the words Blackwell Shipping slashed across the brick facade, the paint nearly as old as the crumbling bricks.

He picked off the snipers on the roof first, one shot, one kill. Each man falling in a silent heap before they could even register what had happened to their companions. Frank suspected the kidnappers knew this would happen, giving no shits for the unfortunate assholes posted up there. They were decoys, something to make him feel safe and in control. He glanced along the windows of the surrounding warehouses, finally catching the glint of a rifle scope in the moonlight. Frank took the man out with one shot, quickly moving down into the alley beside the building.

If he had anything to say about it, there wouldn’t be a lone survivor of the Blackwell family when he was finished with them.

-

As soon as the line went dead, the man hauled Karen back up against him. He pulled her back into the corridor, this time moving toward a set of damp stone steps. She fought against his movements. Every fiber of her being told her that going to yet another location with this man spelled disaster. She elbowed him in the ribs and took off down the corridor, only to be caught in the midsection by an unyielding fist out of nowhere.

She crumpled to the floor, and the new man picked her up like a sack of potatoes and threw her over his shoulder. “Where you want me to put her, Mr. Blackwell?”

“In my office. I have plans for her.”

Unable to catch her breath, she was helpless. She could feel the man going up the stairs with her, heard the click of a door unlocking. He dropped her in a heap on a slick leather couch, her vision doubling as her head knocked against the wall behind her. The bigger man was gone before she could gather her senses. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried valiantly to catch her breath and ease the throbbing in her skull. Everything was happening too fast, her mind foggy with the latest blow.

Her original captor was back, Mr. Blackwell his man had called him. She wracked her brain and still couldn’t come up with anything. Why did this man want Frank so badly? And what did he have planned for her?

One question was answered with the sound of leather belt sliding free from its loops and dropping to the floor. Karen’s eyes flew open to see Blackwell unbuttoning his trousers and stalking toward her with a leering smile on his face. “My brother liked to beat his whores a little before availing himself of their services, but I’m more of a gentle sort. Gentler even, I bet, than your fuckbuddy Castle.”

Karen felt her mind go blank. Men like this couldn’t be reasoned with. She didn’t have anything to trade him, no information, no assurances. He wanted one thing, and that was to crush her beneath him, to inflict as much pain as possible. He had no ulterior motive now that Frank was already on the way, and she had no means of stopping him.

Seeing her frozen in fear made Blackwell’s smile grow wider, and he threw caution to the winds, approaching her quickly. His snatched at her blouse, eyes dancing as the buttons bounced on the wooden floorboards. The motion made Karen look down, and she saw it. The metal edge of the spoon hidden in her bra.

In a split second she fished the utensil out, holding it in her hand like a dagger she lunged forward and plunged the curved metal into Blackwell’s eye socket, twisting the spoon and pulling out the man’s eyeball.

He let out a bloodcurdling scream, staggering back, hands clutched to his face. Karen was back, her mind firing on all cylinders. Quickly she jumped up, scrambling to the fireplace to grab the only weapon-like object in the room: a rusty fire poker.

She hit him over the head with the handle, heavy cast iron leaving a crunching dent in the back of the man’s skull. He dropped to the floor instantly, but Karen’s momentum and rage carried her forward, raising the handle over and over again until the man’s face was nothing but a bloody pulp.

The door behind her flew open, and she turned, fully prepared to fly at her next attacker, but she stopped cold at the sight of a white skull painted across a flack jacket. Relief surged through her body, making her go limp, fire poker falling to the floor. Her spiking adrenaline had nowhere to go now that she wasn’t fighting. Instead she burst into tears, knees collapsing beneath her.

Frank caught her before she hit the floor, holding her tight against his chest, soft shushing noises whispering in her ear as his hands probed her body for injuries. “I’ve got you. They’re all dead. You’re safe.”

-

She didn’t see him again for two weeks, but it wasn’t the same as the last time. One by one the heirs to the Blackwell Shipping fortune began showing up dead, clearly assassinated, one bullet lodged in each of them. She kept track of it in the obituaries, safely ensconced in Foggy’s apartment. Frank wouldn’t let her go back to hers until this mess was over.

When she did go back there were new locks on the door, a new steel reinforced door frame even, and the windows looked like they belonged in fort knox. The glass was suspiciously thick and Karen was pretty sure it could withstand more than a few rounds of ammunition.

And he was waiting for her, standing in her kitchen with small flowerpot clutched in his scarred hands, an unreadable expression on his face. She walked toward him, unsure of what he was thinking. “That for me?”

He nodded, setting the succulent plant on the table beside him. “I would have brought flowers but…” He trailed off, the memory of the violets still painful for the both of them. “Ma’am, I’m sorry–”He stopped short, something in his voice catching. His vocal chords were raspy, mostly unused in the past few weeks. The sound of emotion getting tangled in with the hoarse vibrations made her pulse skip. “Frank?”

He moved toward her, lifting one hand to her face, fingers tracing the spot where she’d been bruised. The mark was long faded, but she knew he could still see it in his mind’s eye. His roving hand slipped into her hair, cradling her head, fingers brushing against the spot where she’d been knocked over the head.

Swallowing, she tried to form the words to articulate how she was feeling. There was a well of emotion inside of her, rising until she thought it was going to spill out in a cascade of tears. He was being so gentle, his eyes probing so deeply into her soul. Before she could say anything, she was crushed to him in a tight hug.

He mumbled against her hair. “I should have stopped coming around a long time ago. You’re life is tainted by me. I’m sorry.” He began to pull away.

She shook her head, reaching her arms up around his neck and pulling him closer. “What’s done is done, Frank. Leaving won’t change that.” Her bottom lip began to tremble. “Please stay.”

He leaned down, his forehead touching hers, skin melding. “Okay.”

“Okay.”